Record Usage and Interpretation

Dear Editor;

I am researching the parentage of Almond McHenry (b. 1821), Allegany, New York. In the 1831 will of Sara Mulhullon, Almond McHenry her grandson, is listed first in a list of Henry McHenry's children. Also listed were the two other grandchildren, listed as children of Danial McHenry. All of these grandchildren inherited a portion of Sara's estate. Danial and Henry McHenry inherited nothing. In 1833 Danial McHenry was appointed guardian of his two children. The guardianship included information about real property and a bond was required for both children's guardianship.

Both Ancestry and FamilySearch provide the same database (with FamilySearch’s data coming from Ancestry’s data).

From FamilySearch (virtually identical at Ancestry):

My grandfather was admitted to the State Bar Assn. in 1919 following two years of home sstudy with a mentor. I want to enter this as a sourced event in Legacy, but would appreciate advice on how best to document this occasion.

Thank you

I am trying to decipher a probated will from a Richmond County, GA from 1824. In transcribing the information, I have happened on the use of a character with which I am not familiar. The character has been added to several words in the document, usually as a separate character after the word and occasionally as an additional character continuing a word. The usage does not seem to follow in particular pattern that I can discern. It follows the word “and” several times, but also follows “support”, “at”, “managed”, “kind” and many others.

Is there a recommended notation for transcription? I have seen various styles of punctuation to indicate such things as uncertain characters, clarifications or suggested interpretations, inserted text, marginalia, underlined text, italics, struck-out text, and even the use of different colours by the original author. Some of these are incomplete -- in my opinion -- and some rely on special symbols that are hard to generate reliably (e.g. the Unicode symbols U+202A and U+202B for L-to-R and R-to-L embedding).

When writing about two or more people with the same name, what is the best way to distinguish their identies for the reader?  In the case I am currently developing, I've got a father and son, a possible grandfather, a nephew and a great nephew all with the same name.  They did not, however, generally distinguish themselves in records being used as evidence.  I've seen situations where people just invent a name, such as "Sam Jones, Sr," "Sam Jones, Jr." and "Sam Jones III," yet no records call them by that name with the generational suffix appended.

Elizabeth,

Sorry; this question doesn't apply to this forum, but I figure I'm not the only one who has or will ask this question.

What is the URL for an RSS news feed of the comments posted on the EE blog? I would have expected something like https://www.evidenceexplained.com/comments/rss, but that doesn't work.

Thanks,
---Robert
 

I have at hand an 1820 letter from a Rhode Island businessman who gripes that he has had a libel filed against him on a bottomry bond. What’s going on here? I thought libel was slander, but I’m guessing this wasn’t about slandering somebody’s bottom.