Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Beware of the Symbols

Because I have made a recent cousin connection with a branch of my family in North Stonington, Connecticut and we are sharing resources, I am reminded that some resources are really hard to figure out without a key to the symbols within the publication. None has been more difficult than a publication on the surname STEWART which is now out of copyright and available from Google Books. [Stewart Clan Magazine]

It must have been sold as a subscription "family historian" magazine in the 1920s for $1 a year (I wish everything was so cheap now, don't you?) and published whenever the editor and associate editor could manage it. Wouldn't they be surprised to see each issue all "bound" in Adobe Acrobat format?

Put on your flapper clothes and examine this heading of page 189 of May, 1926 and see that they had not only a volume number but an issue number and a date.


At the bottom of this page is a key to the symbols and references of the publication.


Not all the pages have this key. Many of the symbols are barely readable. Doesn't this remind you of the symbols on gravestones?

 I decided today that I might be missing something such as the subtle distinction of married and marriage intention. 

Guess I'd better make my own key. So, beware of the symbols!


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