Genealogy: To Enter or Not to Enter - that is the Data Question

As I sat here thinking about a lead into this article, I reflected back on the passing of the Queen Mother, who died a few years ago at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park at the age of 101.The death of this gracious soul brought to an end to an era of kinder and gentler times. Now you may be wondering how this may tie in with a genealogy article. Simply because the Queen Mother's death, funeral and burial will be entered in many genealogists' databases and these entries will be rather detailed, and thus brings us to the crux of this article. All the information here concerns death and burials, however the principle also applies to births, marriages and the like.

When you are entering data such as a place of death and then of the burial, one starts to run into some difficulties. Most genealogy programs offer a section to list the date and place of death and burial. But how to enter this information can present problems.

In most genealogy programs, there is a place to enter the town or city, state and country of death and burial. But often we want to include such notes as the place the death occurred (i.e. name of hospital, at home) and the name of the cemetery in which the burial takes place and where the funeral service was held.

I shall use the Queen Mother as an example. Her death took place at her home of Royal Lodge, Great Windsor Park, Windsor, England. Her body was moved to the Church of All Saints in Great Windsor Park, then to St. James Palace where she will rest for a few days. She will then lie in state at Westminster Hall for 3 days before her funeral in Westminster Abbey, London. She will then be interred in St. Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle next to her husband George VI.

That is quite a bit of information to input. But it is vital to enter as much data as possible in concerning things like deaths and burials. This not only serves as a complete record, but often will enable other genealogists the chance to unearth records of other family members who may be buried in the same cemetery, etc.

Most of the information as I quoted above would be entered as notes. Only the city, state, country and the like should be entered on the main data page. There is often an indicator on the main data pages in genealogy programs to direct users to more information.

Also these note pages can be used to hold other kinds of information such as titles and awards, medical data and statistics or even antidotes. In the Queen Mother's case, I would note that she was known as Lady Elizabeth before her marriage, then as the Duchess of York and then as the Queen Consort when her husband was crowned. After his death, she was given the title of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

These pages should be used to remember significant events in the person's life. Notes for the Queen Mother may include the Abdication Crisis, which led to her husband becoming King, the Blitz of WWII and the use of her family home, Glamis Castle in Scotland as a hospital for the war wounded in WWI, which saw her service in tending to the medical needs of the soldiers.

While we all may not have such grand titles and the like to enter in our pages, we all still have much that can be. Enter medals or commissions earned by service people; enter degrees earned at university, even beauty pageant titles. Everything like this helps to paint a portrait for future generations to think about, and wonder about times long past. As the saying goes, you have to understand your past before you can define your future.

In my next article we will be looking at ways to get around the ancestral 'brick wall' we sometimes encounter!