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| No: 62 |
April 2011
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News April Seminars None programmed at this time. May Seminars 6: Tracing your English ancestors 6:30 to 9:30pm 8: Heritage Walk—Glenelg, settlement/resort 1:00 to 3:00pm 9: Finding SA families in newspapers 8:00pm to 10:00pm 15: Heritage Walk—Historic Houghton 1:00 to 3:00pm 22: Heritage Walk—North Adelaide Cathedral precinct 1:00 to 3:00pm 27: Tracing your Scottish ancestors 6:30 to 9:30pm 28: Coming to grips with FamilySearch, WEA Centre Adelaide, 10:00am to 1:00pm 29: Heritage Walk—Port Adelaide heritage precinct 1:00 to 3:00pm All hosted by the WEA Centre Adelaide See the seminar program for more details and bookings. May is history month in SA History week usually held at the end of each May under the leadership of HistorySA has been expanded to embrace the whole month to coincide with 175 celebrations of formal European settlement in SA. Many organisations are planning activities for the month including the WEA (see May seminars above) and readers can obtain a program of events from HistorySA and many other venues. Australian Heritage Week The Commonwealth Government has declared 14 to 20 April as Australian Heritage Week. As part of the celebrations, Graham Jaunay will be leading a heritage walk around Semaphore entitled. Esplanade and shops, on behalf of The Friends of SA Archives. If you are interested in joining in this walk, additional details will be available by sending an email to Adelaide Proformat. |
In
this issue: |
Adelaide
Proformat Services
• Research |
| Standard
abbreviations for genealogists The problem with abbreviations is their inconsistency and that can lead to misinterpretation and consequently errors. This can be a major issue for family historians as demonstrated in the example from FamilySearch pictured. 
The family sent off the entry as Adelaide SA and the LDS (that is
an abbreviation for the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints)
wrongly interpreted SA as South Africa when in fact at that time it
was RSA (it is now ZAF). Regardless a simple check reveals no Adelaide
on the African continent. Abbreviations if to be used should follow 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: Abbreviations. Here we see an overwhelming list and if all options were used then data would become unintelligible! Some of the biggest offenders are online family history sites. In FamilySearch we can see a range of abbreviations on the same page being used for the same county. Fortunately in this case none should lead to misinterpretation! I spotted Staf, Staffs, Stafford, Staffordshire and of these, the second but last one is the most confusing, being the name of the town rather than the county! Moreover, an American soldier thinks Staffs represents Simulated Training and Analysis for Fixed Facilities/Sites! I would insist on two rules when using abbreviations. 1. Avoid using them in prose where space is not a premium, and, 2. If you use an abbreviation have an explanation key somewhere in the publication. Good abbreviations should be intuitive and explain themselves in their context. Readers should not have problems with the following examples: C7th document; b. 4 Jul 1856 Brighton SSX; 17cm; Hd of Barossa; bro/o Paul; pre-1840 There are a number of bodies that publish standards and where the following list omits data, the appropriate national authority should be the reference. For example the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) should be the authority for appropriate abbreviations for electoral data. The following list addresses these matters and family historians are encouraged to consider using such material
Ann abbreviation only works if it is understood by all potential readers. Frankly, I use them sparingly in charts and never in writing. |
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