Delaware Families Format

DELAWARE FAMILIES PROJECT
FORMAT GUIDE

of the Delaware Genealogical Society

See also Project Description, Sample Entry, Quality Standards,
Format Guide, Abbreviations, References, We Need Help,
Families for Vol. #1 (2004), Registration and All Families Registered

Delaware Families Tasks
Here are several ways you can help and you don't need to live in Delaware.

Delaware Families Format Guide

Introduction
The formatting task is all important, but somewhat complicated and exacting, which may explain why many entries have not been submitted in the proper format. One of the greatest deficiencies of new entries is the lack of documentation (what is the source of each and every fact reported - see section "H" below). This guide should make entries easier to submit in the proper format while saving us reformatting time and research time to check for accuracy and documentation. Our format is based on that used by the Maine Families and Vermont Families projects and designed with these goals: conformation to genealogical standards, reading flow, appearance, ease of spotting names and compactness.

For additional guidance, please refer to entries appearing in recent DGS newsletters and to the Delaware Families "Submitter's Entry" sample and to the lists of Abbreviations, and References and to each issue of the The Delaware Genealogical Society newsletters since September 1996. For further advice consult Tasks and Quality of Sources. If anything in this guide is unclear or if more information is needed, please write: Tom Doherty at
tdoherty@delgensoc.org
.
A. General Philosophy:

1. The focus husband and the focus wife are equals, i.e. the ancestry of the wife is as important as that of the husband. They qualify as a "focus couple", even if the husband died before 1787, but the wife is still living.

2. More than one person from the same family can be defined as a "focus person", who is an adult (and/or their spouse) named in an original record (census, tax, deed, probate) between 1787 and 1800 inclusive. When a male reached age 21, he was taxed as an adult; but an underage couple who married between 1787 and 1800 would also qualify.

3. In general, we want to maximize the number of "focus persons" within the same family for any given Delaware Families book, so if parents and/or children also qualify as "focus persons", try to include them as separate entries. This allows one more generation to be described. Cross reference with "[See their entry]" ( see examples).

4. Include a copy of the real signature, if available, of each focus person. A real signature often appeared on most original documents (a letter, an original will, court records, marriage bond), often in different handwriting than the rest of the document. Make sure your "signature" was not one that was just copied along with a document into a govern- ment volume, such as deed and probate volumes. We scan the signatures into a computer, so we need a signature of as good a quality as possible. Put the date of the signature at the end of that focus person's writeup using [sig:date].

5. We would like to include other true "tidbits" about the focus people that will interset the reader, e.g. his or her occupation, inheritance specifications in wills, court fights, unique real estate transactions, political offices, military service. Also if you have a unique tidbit about a child or parent, we would include it, but not about a grandchild. Per our standards, all "tidbits" must be sourced.

6. Since descendants of slaves have an especially difficult time compiling their genealogies, we want to include names of slaves whenever they appear.

7. Children are listed using Arabic numerals on a new line, but grandchildren are listed using lower case Roman numerals and not on a new line.

8. Accepted rules of evidence should be followed: "Any statement of fact that is not common knowledge must carry its own individual statement of source." [Ref: Elizabeth Shawn Mills: Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian (1997) - published by Genealogical Publishing Company]

B. Information Included:

1. This is a 5-generation report, but does not extend beyond 5-generations. Neither Maine, Vermont nor New Hampshire even include a "Parent" section.

2. Do not include ANY grandparent information beyond their names, but see next item.

3. Indicate at the end of the "Parent" section the sources where additional ancestral information can be found using the designation: [AncesRef: ]. List only those sources not already listed in the parent and/or focus persons' sections unless the pages cannot otherwise be easily found.

4. Include date and place information and sources for birth, baptism, marriages, death and burial for each focus person and for their parents and children, if available.

5. Children's spouses: List the name, birth date, birthplace and parent's names for each spouse of the focus couple's children, if known, but do not include spouse death data.

6. Grandchildren: List only birth and marriage information (including the name of the spouse, but no spousal birth nor parentage) for the grandchildren.

7. Grandchildren death information is not included unless they died unmarried then use "d unm" and include date (if known) and source.

8. With a superscript " # ", indicate from which child and which grandchild of the focus couple the submitter descends.

9. Do not name any great-grandchildren of the focus couple.

10. If a given name or surname is unknown, use 6 underlines ______ instead.

11. If a focus person or a focus person's parent is of unknown ancestry, say "of unk ancestry", but for any other person whose ancestry is unknown, do not say so.

C. Information Order - Vital Events:

1. Order basic vital events in every section (focus, parents, children) as follows: birth, death, marriage, other.

2. Event (birth, baptism, death, etc) order is generally date, place, source. Use "in" and/or "at" before place, but no preposition before date: e.g. John bp 4 Jan 1787 at ChristPE in Laurel [Scharf 2:23].

3. Marriage order is person, date, place, source.

4. Put marriage information for focus couple in the paragraph of the male focus person (after his birth and death data) rather than as the lead statement in the female focus person's write-up, except (see next item).

5. If a focus person remarries, put the remarriage data in that focus person's bio right after their birth and death (and first marriages if the male remarries), but put the new spouse's bio after the children from the first spouse.

6. If a child remarries, include this information after the children from the first spouse by repeating the first name of the child, then "m2" or "m3", etc., followed by the name, etc., of that spouse and the children from that spouse, if any, etc.

7. If a parent remarries, repeat the first name of the parent, then "m2", "m3", etc, followed by the name of that spouse.

8. Never use the terms "married first" or "m1"; "married" or "m" is enough.

D. Information Order - Other:

1. Children and grandchildren are numbered in birth or estimated birth order even if from multiple spouses.

2. To minimize repetition, e.g. of places or sources, state the place and/or source at the beginning of a list, such as a list of children if all children are born in the same place or data is from the same source [see "Submitter's Entry" sample]. If there is an exception in the list, e.g. one child born in another place, state only that exception in only that child's section.

3. For dates, use day-month-year order; e.g. 2 Jul 1789.

4. For early dates that don't designate a month, use, e.g., 24d 4m (Jun) 1732, including "Jun", etc. only if known.

E. Names: Bold, Italic, Capitalization and Punctuation:

1. Boldnames of focus persons, their parents, their children and their children's spouses, but only in their section and only the first time their name is mentioned in their section.

2. Do not use italics for any names but grandchildren's names and not for their spouses.

3. CAPITALIZE all surnames but only the focus person's given name and only when it is the 1st word of their section.

4. Put a period after initials in names unless the initial, itself, is the name.

F. Other: Bold, Italic and Punctuation:

1. Do not bold anything, except names listed in E1 above.

2. Do not italicize anything except: grandchildren's name, short forms of sources, submitter's name and address.

3. Put a periodafter each "Focus Person" section, "Parent" section and child's section.

4. Put two spaces between sentences.

5. In a series, never put a comma before the "and": e.g., he was a farmer, cooper and merchant.

G. Abbreviations:

1. Abbreviations of commonly used words, generally without spaces or punctuation, will be listed in the introduction of each Delaware Families volume to save space.

2. Put no period after any abbreviation, except after initials in people's names.

3. The place is often attached to an abbreviation without a space and assumed to be Delaware, so that the name of the hundred or county is sufficient for place identification.

4. For out-of-state places, spell out the county names followed by "Co" and the 2-letter (all caps) postal state abbreviation (except use NoC for North Carolina to distinguish it from NC for New Castle Co), e.g. [ProbAllenCoOH 5:123]. For counties or towns bordering Delaware with unique names, use shorter abbreviations, e.g. [MarrCecil 22:6]. Use three- letter (all caps) country abbreviations, e.g CND, ENG, FRA, IRE, GER.

5. The abbreviation scheme for government records will generally first list the type of source followed (with no space) by the place, then the specific volume and page: [Type of record, Place of record, space, Volume #, ":", beginning page number; then "in" (if found in a secondary source or "; see" (if it would be helpful to mention one), SecondarySource, beginning page number]. Examples: [ProbSX John Smith 1776 in CalenSX 175], [MilArDE 3:1089], [WillsNC L:16; see CalenNC 87], [DeedsKT A:287], [OrphSX 41:216], [Cen1830SX 32], [Tax1812Broadkill]

6. Abbreviate hundreds with only the first 10 letters and no spaces; e.g., "Baltimore", "WhiteClayC". Exceptions: "LittleCrKT", "LittleCrSX", "NoWestFork". "NewCastle" is a hundred, "New Castle" a town, and "NC" a county.

7. Always abbreviate "c1787" for "about 1787" and "aft", "bef", "btw", "unk"; but always use "and" instead of "&".

8. For focus persons and their parents, do not abbreviate in the text describing events (e.g. use "born", "married", "died", "daughter"); but see exceptions in G8.

9. For children and grandchildren, abbreviate in the text describing events (e.g. "b", "bp", "m", "d", "bur", "dau").

10. For dates always abbreviate months with only 3 letters.

H. Sources: [also see D2, F2, G3, G4, G5]

1. Sources should be from the original record.

2. Minimize secondary sources, but esp. undocumented family sources (indicate by [Submitter's last name]) and igi (Latter-day Saints index). Instead find the original record or at least the source the author used.

3. Each genealogical fact must have a source, but a source may also be applied to a group of facts, such as a birth date and place. Also see D2 on this page for group sourcing.

4. If you do not have a source, indicate with [***] to mark which sources need to be found before we publish.

5. Short and long forms of sources will be listed in the book's introduction. Only short forms, generally designed without spaces or punctuation, will appear in the text.

6. Short forms of sources of published sources generally are composed of the author's name or a title keyword, followed by a space and a page number. Other sources generally begin with the type of source (Bib, mm, Let) with the place attached to it, e.g. mmWilm, BibDAR.

7. Do not put a period after any short form of a source.

8. For sources on consecutive pages, e.g. deeds, only list the first page of the sources.

9. Separate multiple sources by semicolons & a space and multiple pages within sources by commas & no space.

10. Only include a date within a source if it is not otherwise mentioned, e.g. he died "btw 1830 [CenSX 89] and 1840 [CenSX 98]", "In 1820, he res in Dover [CenKT 6]".

11. Avoid using "ibid" or "op cit" for sources.

12. For multiple volume sources, use short form followed by a space, then volume:page (e.g. MilArDE 2:34 or DeedsSX H5:67).

13. The short form of secondary sources is always italicized.

I. Using Word Processing Software:

1. The parent's entries and each child's entry will be indented in the final format, so DO NOT INDENT and do not use tabs or extra spaces when you submit an entry. Indentations are automatically inserted using our software.

2. Fonts from submissions are automatically converted to the proper format using our software; so DO NOT submit entries with embedded font designations.

We are not equipped to answer general queries - see Submitting Queries.

DELAWARE FAMILIES PROJECT FORMAT GUIDE

DELAWARE FAMILIES PROJECT
FORMAT GUIDE