Many GRANDMA users will want to add new information to their copy of the database and send it to us for inclusion in future versions of GRANDMA. The following data entry rules will help ensure that data is submitted in a consistent format.
Entering immigration information
Entering the Ref. number (name code)
Names should be entered normal sequence (First Middle Last). Use only initial capitals. Epithets or nicknames should be inside the name, enclosed in quotes.
Examples:
Maria Helena Brandt
John N. Duerksen
Isaac P. “Ike” Thiessen
Do not enter titles, such as “Ph.D.,” “M.D.,” “Sr.,” “Jr.,” or “III.”
If either the given name or the surname is unknown, use five underscore lines as a substitute for the missing name.
Examples:
_____ Toews
Susanna _____
If a person's name is not known, but they have a known spouse and known children, use two sets of five underscore lines.
Example:
_____ _____
If a person more commonly was known by his or her middle name, enter the middle name in all capital letters.
Example:
John STEVEN Reimer
Enter names
exactly as they appear in the source consulted, even if there is reason
to believe the spelling there is in error. The Name Code system will
allow the entry to be found even if the spelling is incorrect. Variant
spellings will be resolved later and noted in the
“Note” field. Sometimes, what is originally
believed to be a misspelling turns out to be the correct spelling. This
would not be discovered unless the source is copied exactly.
Dates should be entered in Brother's Keeper as a series of eight digits: MMDDYYYY.
Example:
January 27, 1899, should be entered as 01271899.
If only the month and year are known, enter the date in the form MM??YYYY. If date and month are known, but not the year, enter the date in the form MMDD????. If only the year is known, simply enter the four digits for the year. Do not attempt to enter a date where the day and the year are known, but the month is missing.
Examples:
An unknown date in March 1907 should be entered 03??1907
13 December in an unknown year should be entered 1213????
An otherwise unknown date in 2001 should be entered 2001. A date with a known day and year, e.g., a birth on the 13th day of an unknown month in 1907 should be entered as 1907 with a note that says the birth occurred on the 13th day of an unknown month in 1907.
The Brother’s Keeper program will automatically translate these entries into a properly-formatted date entry. The date display style can be changed in Brother’s Keeper by going to File/Options/Date. Regardless of the display style you choose, always enter dates according to the method shown above.
If entering data into a program other than Brother's Keeper, simply enter the date in DDMMMYYYY format, entering as much data as is available.
Examples:
1 Jan 1878
Dec 1934
1978
One source of confusion involving dates in Mennonite genealogy arises because of the change from the Julian (“Old Style”) calendar to the Gregorian (“New Style”) calendar. The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, and had been adopted across much of the European continent by the middle of the seventeenth century. Russia, however, did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1918. Mennonites who were born in Russia and later migrated to North America, therefore, often used a combination of Old and New Style calendar dates during their lives. Old Style dates are 12 days earlier for events occurring in the nineteenth century and 13 days earlier for events occurring in the twentieth century. Since it is often unclear which calendar is being used, we do not recommend that users convert dates from Old Style to New Style. Record the date as found in the original source, and include a comment in the Note field that the date is Old Style.
Example:
Birth date is Old Style. All other dates are New Style.
It is important that locations are entered into GRANDMA in a manner that matches already-existing entries for that location. This can best be accomplished by consulting the Brother’s Keeper location list before making a location entry. To access the existing list of locations in Brother's Keeper, type the first few (at least three) letters of a location name, then use the F8 key to find a list of matching locations. There is a very good chance that the desired location already appears in GRANDMA. Choosing it from the list rather than entering it manually will help ensure consistency of location names in the database. Location.pdf is a complete list of locations that appear in the database. Use the search feature in Acrobat to search this list. In many cases, the preferred name for the location can be found along with alternate location names and geographical coordinates.
Because of changes in political jurisdiction and changes in dominant language, some geographical locations have been known by different names at different times. The preference is to use only one name for any given geographical location. The preferred name is the one most commonly used in documents dating from the time when Mennonites resided there (even if this is no longer the region's proper name).
For entering new locations that do not already appear in the glossary, use the following basic location rules:
U.S. and Canadian Locations: When entering a location in the United States or Canada, enter the town followed by the state or province. For U.S. locations, use the county only if the town is not known, or if the town is known but so small that it cannot easily be identified without including a reference to the county. Use the township only if more specific data cannot be obtained. If the only known location information is the state or territory, enter that by itself.
Examples:
Fresno, California
Niverville, Manitoba
Jefferson County, Nebraska
Brookdale, Santa Cruz County, California
Garden Township, Harvey County, Kansas
Dakota Territory
Saskatchewan
Russian Locations: When entering a Russian location, “South Russia” will generally be the most correct final entry for locations in present-day Ukraine, even though other names (e.g., Soviet Union, Russia, Ukraine) have also been used at various times. Because this name was the one most commonly used by Mennonites, we prefer it as the standard form even if it was not the official name at the time of a specific event. Locations in present-day Russia should be listed as “Russia,” and locations in Siberia should be listed as “Asiatic Russia.”
If nothing more is known about the event than that it happened in “South Russia,” “Asiatic Russia,” or “Russia,” then enter that location alone. If the colony name is known, enter the colony, followed by “Russia,” “South Russia,” or “Asiatic Russia.” If the village is known, enter that, followed by the colony, followed by “Russia,” “South Russia,” or “Asiatic Russia.”
Examples:
Elisabeththal, Molotschna, South Russia
Bergthal Colony, South Russia
Alexanderkrone, Barnaul, Asiatic Russia
The same Mennonite village names were often used in several colonies across Russia. There was, for example, a village of Orloff in both the Sagradovka Colony (South Russia) and the Barnaul Colony (Asiatic Russia). If an event was known to have occurred in the village of Orloff, but the colony is not known, it will be necessary to call it simply “Orloff, Russia.”
Prussian Locations: When entering a Prussian (present-day Polish) location, avoid references to “West Prussia” or “East Prussia” because these distinctions are often unclear. Simply use “Prussia” as a country reference, even though the area was known by other names at various times. Enter the village, if known, followed by “Prussia.” If it is known that a village was in a particular Werder, that could be shown. If it is only known that the event occurred in one of the Werders, enter that, followed by “Prussia.”
Examples:
Altmuensterberg, Gross Werder, Prussia
Ladekop, Prussia
Marienwerder, Prussia
Where the source consulted is not specific about the location, but shows two possible locations, enter them both, using a hyphen.
Example:
Laase-Schrop, Prussia
Other Locations: When entering any other location, enter the city, town, village or colony, followed by the state or region, followed by the country.
Examples:
Filadelfia, Paraguay
Maxdorf, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Blumenfeld, Manitoba, Chihuahua, Mexico
Enter baptism
information if it is known about the person. Before the twentieth
century, Mennonite baptisms often occurred near the person's twentieth
birthday. Earlier, the baptism almost always preceded marriage. Thus,
if a birth date or marriage date is unknown, the baptism date may
useful to predict age or other information about the person. Do not,
however, enter estimated birth dates based only on baptism dates.
Enter the date
and location of burial, if known, according to the date and location
entry rules described above. Do not enter the name of the cemetery or
the church in this field. If the church name, cemetery name or plot
number are known, that information may be put in the Note field.
Entering Immigration Information
Use the “Immigrated” event field to enter information about when a person migrated from one country to another. The date entered should be the date of the person's arrival in the new country, if that date is known. If the event reported is the immigration of the person to the New World, the location field should contain the name of the vessel on which the person sailed, followed by a semicolon and the port of entry, if known.
Examples:
2 Jul 1879 S.S. Strassburg; arrived New York, New York
For an immigrant moving from Prussia to Russia, the date is the arrival date, followed by the province, or province and village, of destination in Russia.
Example:
1803 Chortitza Colony, South Russia
Entering the Ref. number (Name Code)
In the Location/Description column of the Ref. number field, enter the five-character alphanumeric Name Code. These codes consist of three numbers indicating the person’s surname, and two letters indicating the person’s given name. They are used to link and allow searches on variant spellings of the same name, or names that are commonly confused with each other. A complete list of these codes is available.
Documentary source information should be included, if possible, in every GRANDMA entry. There is a separate source field for each event field in Brother’s Keeper 6, and source information should be attached to the most relevant event. An obituary, for example, would best be used to document a death date, even though that obituary might also include the deceased person’s birth date. It is not necessary to repeat the same source in a single entry even if it documents multiple events within that person’s life.
Sources may be viewed, edited or added by clicking in the column labeled S next to the appropriate event on the Brother’s Keeper 6 edit screen. An “S” in one of the boxes in that column indicates that a source has already been entered for that event. It is possible to enter multiple sources for the event.
In some cases the words “Has General Source” may appear on the edit screen in the area just above the previously-mentioned columns. If that is the case, click on the words “Has General Source” to open the Source screen.
Given the size of the GRANDMA database, it is very possible that a particular source has already been entered. When preparing to enter a “new source,” be sure to carefully search the existing source entries by using the “show sources starting with” box. This will search the abbreviation field for each source that matches the characters you entered. Since source abbreviations are not always entered in consistent style, it may be necessary to search both by title and author to verify whether a particular source already exists in the database. Be aware that this search function only searches for characters at the beginning of the abbreviation, and cannot search for keywords within the abbreviation. A file named Source.pdf is included on the GRANDMA CD. The Search function in Acrobat can be used with this file to locate a source by author or other keywords.
Though the “abbreviation” field is the only searchable source field, Brother’s Keeper 6 allows for much more detailed entry of source information, with separate fields for author, title, publisher, etc. This more complete bibliographical information will print as a footnote on some Brother’s Keeper reports. Users should fill in these fields according to the following conventions:
Author:
Enter personal names in reverse order. Editors and compilers should be treated as authors.
Example:
Friesen, Margaretha.
For congregational records, treat the name of the church as the author. Include additional geographic information in parentheses.
Examples:
Corn (Okla.) Mennonite Brethren Church
First Mennonite Church (Reedley, Calif.)
Title:
Enter the full title of the source, including subtitle. In the case of unpublished records, it may be necessary to assign a descriptive title.
Examples:
The Muensterberg Hueberts: A Family History and Genealogy of Claas Huebert (1785-1853).
Congregational membership records.
Publisher/date:
Enter the place of publication, publisher and date of publication as follows:
Example:
Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1984.
It is not necessary to include publication information when entering unpublished sources such as congregational records.
Do not include the date in this field when entering newspaper articles or obituaries from church periodicals. Those dates should be entered in the “Page/reel number” field.
Repository:
For unpublished records not readily available at other locations, it is important to enter information about where the material may be found. Clicking on the Repository button opens a box into which such information may be entered.
Example:
Repository name: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies
Address: 1717 S. Chestnut Ave.
Fresno, CA 93702
Phone: (559) 453-2225
Fax: (559) 453-2124
E-Mail: archives@fresno.edu
Web: fresno.edu/library/cmbs
Abbreviation:
Only the “abbreviation” field of a source is easily searchable in Brother’s Keeper 6, and so considerable care must be taken to enter useful information into that field.
Follow these general rules for entering new source information into the abbreviation field:
Enter the name of the book, followed by the author, if information is from a book. If the source is a family history book and the family name is not the first word in the book title, put the family name first. It is important to have a keyword first in this field, since it is only searchable from the beginning of the character string. Do not include subtitles, since these often will not fit into the abbreviation field.
Examples:
Jantzen Family Record, by F. F. Jantzen
Kleinsasser, John A. and Katharina Family Register
Brothers In Deed to Brothers in Need, by Clarence Hiebert.
Abbreviated titles for church records should always begin with the location of the congregation.
Examples:
Mountain Lake, Minnesota. Mennonite Church Records
Rosedale, California. Mennonite Brethren Church Records
Enter the name of the newspaper, if the source is a newspaper. If the publication location is not obvious from the newspaper title, include the location in parentheses.
Examples:
Carillon, The (Steinbach, Man.)
Hillsboro Star-Journal
Include the date of the newspaper article in the page field. DO NOT include the date in the source abbreviation field (see below for examples of how to enter dates into the page field).
Page/reel number:
For books, simply enter the page number from which particular information was taken. For newspaper articles or obituaries from church periodicals, enter both the date and page number into this field
Example:
11 Oct 1985, p5
Do not abbreviate
these dates numerically. U.S. convention would write the date above as
10/11/1985. Most of the rest of the world, however, would write
11/10/1985, so the numerical abbreviation can cause confusion.
Use the Notes fields for additional textual information that does not fit into any of the regular fields. These fields should not be used for source data.
Brother’s Keeper allows for the entry of either general notes or notes related to a specific event. General notes can be viewed, edited or added by clicking on the Notes tab on the edit screen. An asterisk in the Notes tab indicates that a general note already exists for the person. Notes related to specific events can be viewed, edited or added by clicking on the appropriate box in the column labeled N. A letter “N” in any of those boxes indicates that a note already exists
When entering data in the message field, use concise, full sentences to report information. Comments should be kept as short as possible.
The principal function for the message field is to explain anomalies in the data and information that may be used to help link the person to others.
Examples:
“His obituary in Zionsbote incorrectly gives his year of birth as 1918.”
“Is this the same person as #45892?”
“She changed her surname to Kliewer after she was adopted.”
Please do not submit notes to the GRANDMA project containing lengthy biographical information or full text of obituaries and other articles.