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Proformat News
No: 112
June 2015
News
 June Seminars
3: Understanding South Australian Land Records 10:00-12:00 WEA Centre Adelaide
10: Discovering Scottish Ancestors 7:00–10:00pm WEA Centre Adelaide
14: Torrens Riverbank Heritage Walk: Swans, bridges & stadium 2:00–4:00pm WEA Centre Adelaide
17: Hunting out English Ancestors 7:00–10:00pm WEA Centre Adelaide
24: Finding Your Irish Ancestors 7:00–10:00pm WEA Centre Adelaide
28: Adelaide Central East Heritage Walk: Clerics, clerks and courts 2:00–4:00pm WEA Centre Adelaide

July Seminars
1: Heave Away! Haul Away! South Australia round Cape Horn 10:00–12 noon WEA Centre Adelaide
22: South Australian resources for family history 10:00-1:00pm WEA Centre Adelaide
29: Using newspapers as a family history aid 10:00–12 noon WEA Centre Adelaide

All bookings must be made with the hosting organisation.

See the seminar program for more details and bookings.

More cuts at State Records of SA
Commencing on 15 June 2015 public access will be provided from Tuesday to Friday 10:00am-5:00pm. The service will no longer be available on Mondays.

Titles now online
The SA Land Services Group have revamped access to Certificates of Title. Both current and historical certificates are available online at a new site called SAILIS. Historical titles formerly $9.50 are currently free. The site is complex to follow but the procedure is the same as attending the Lands Titles Office and using the public terminals. Access details will be the subject of the next newsletter.




In this issue:
News
June Seminars
July Seminars
More cuts at State Records of SA
Titles now online

Feature article
Standard abbreviations for genealogists

header

Graham Jaunay

Glandore SA 5037
Australia

genealogy@jaunay.com

Breaking news: fb

Services
• Drafting charts
• Locating documents
• Seminar presentations
• SA lookup service

Graham Jaunay uses
The Genealogist - for UK census, BMD indexes and more online simply because it contains quality data checked by experts.

Proformat News acknowledges the support by awe AWE

Standard abbreviations for genealogists
The problem with abbreviations is their inconsistency and that can lead to misinterpretation and consequently errors. On the other hand abbreviations can be useful in imparting considerable information in confined spaces such as encountered when drafting family trees.

As a consequence abbreviations, if used, should following some standards and preferably widely used ones. Where in doubt avoid them! For an idea of the confusion and why some authorities publish their in-house standards see the website entitled, Abbreviations.

Regardless it is appropriate in any presentation to include an explanatory key.

Some of the more common abbreviations encountered and appropriate for use follow in the table. Restrict the use of abbreviations to charts, tables and footnotes. Apply the principle that, like contractions, they have a very limited use in formal text.

Words etc
Abbreviation
Notes
Source/Comment
Dates
dd Mon yyyy
06 Nov 1896. Ordinals not used
 A notation like 01/02/03 could mean 1 February 2003 or 2 January 2003 or 2 March 2001; consideration could be given to ISO 8601 format: yyyy-mm-dd (all digit format for sorting purposes but display as expected in AUS)
Although not an issue in AUS, we need to recognise the need to accommodate dates in UK between 1582–1752 when Julian Calendar in vogue – format as dd Mon yyyy/y – thus 21 Feb 1592/3 means under the Julian system the official date was 21 Feb 1592 whereas under the Gregorian it was 21 Feb 1593.
Places Immediate locality always recorded in full thus, Glenelg not Glg etc The place noted should be its name at the time of the event.
Countries
Always uppercase - thus AUS
 Three letter codes are preferred over 2 letter codes. Use the 2 letter codes for divisions within countries as a preference over 3 letter codes.
States
Counties
Provinces
Australia
Post Office codes
 Country code not required; always uppercase.
United Kingdom
Chapman codes
 Country code not required; always uppercase.
World
ISO 316-2
 Where not unique the 3-letter country code should be prefixed to the state/county/province as in:
USA-IL
Common genealogical event terms
birth
b.
 Always lowercase followed by a period and then date + place + State/County/Province
b. 11 Jul 1892 Adelaide SA
Subsequent marriages m2. etc
baptism
c.
marriage
m. / =
divorce
div.
death
d.
killed
k.
burial / buried
bu.
cremation
crm.
Land terms
county
Co

Start with the smallest measure and work up, thus:
Lt 24 Sct 2091 Hd Adelaide

Little need to use counties in AUS
hundred
Hd
section
Sct
lot
Lt
Location
avenue
ave
  
street
st
road
rd
boulevard
bd
place
pl
square
sq
Military terms
These are outlined at the website, Military Abbreviations and Terminology
Time
about
ca / abt
 Avoid use of periods – no spaces between digit and abbreviation:

10:00am; ca1867; C7th; exception: post 1956
afternoon
pm
after
post / aft
before
pre- / bef
century
C
month
mnth
morning
am
year
yr
Awards
Military
official formats
 These are outlined at the website, All Down Under
Civil
Academic
Relationships
brother of
bro/o
  
child of
ch/o
children of
chn/o
father of
f/o
grand / great
g
 As in ggparent for great grandparent
husband of
h/o
  
junior / senior
jnr / snr
sister of
sis/o
mother of
m/o
-in-law
-i-l
 As in sis-i-l for sister in law
step
st-
 As in st-bro for step brother
widow / widower
wid / widr
  
wife of
w/o
witness
wit
Measures
metric
SI system
ISO 31
 See Writing SI units and symbols
In Australia Imperial measures discontinued:
Currency: 14 Feb 1966.
Weights and measures: 12 June 1970, the Australian the Metric Conversion Act introduced a conversion timeline.
1988 – Metrication completed, with the metric system becoming the only system of legal measurements in Australia.
imperial
Use the measure appropriate to the time frame.
See Imperial units
Miscellaneous
also known as
aka
 Only more common forms listed. Use the Macquarie Dictionary This dictionary also lists military rank abbreviations that differ from those proposed by the military. However, treatment of abbreviations by this publication superior to most other websites. Good abbreviations tend to be and should be intuitive.

 
and others
et al
arrived
arr
as written
sic
Bishops Transcript/s
BT
cemetery
cem
certificate/s
cert
General Registry Office
GRO
government
govt
knight
kt
Land Titles Office
LTO
obituary
obit
ordained
ord
origin[ally]
orig
page / pages
p / pp
power of attorney
poa / p of a
published / publisher / publication
pub
retired
ret
see above
qv
unknown / unconfirmed
?
 b. ? means birth details unknown whereas b. 25 May 1960 [?] indicates details not confirmed.
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