To: JewishGen Discussion Group digest
Subject: How do I record this information?

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 14:18:08 +0200

I recently acquired copies of over thirty Pages of Testimony from 
Yad VaShem, all submitted by the same Skalater (a Holocaust 
survivor who died in 1969) on a single day.  This effort probably 
exhausted him and that can certainly account for some mistakes 
and shortcuts.  (In fact he seems to have had four sisters, 
probably married, so there were no doubt quite a few more pages 
that I do not have.)

One of his short cuts was that in only three cases (one being his 
father) did he indicate how he was related to the person in 
question.  He also did not usually indicate the number of children, 
but let each child just be his own page.  Also no birth surnames of 
the women, not even his own murdered wife.

Yitzhak (the submitter) was one of ten chldren of Zvi and Tema, a 
combination of names sufficienty infrequent to be considered 
unique in this family group.  I think

I, therefore, begin with the assumption that anyone else of the 
right age and surname whose parents are Zvi and Tema must be 
Yitzhak's brothers.  But on two of those he wrote specifically 
"cousin."  Now had he written relationships for everyone, I'd 
dismiss these two as errors from exhaustion (with footnote).  But 
since these are the only two relationships mentioned besides the 
one for his father, can I legitimately just call it an error?

On some of the others, I feel I can take a best guess - such as 
one of those presumed brothers (no wife's name) with four 
children, then exactly four people show up with that father and the 
same mother.  Should I put these together as a family group? 
Probably.

And if a man the same age group as Yitzhak's father shows up 
with the same father's name as Yitzhak's father's father, can I 
record them as brothers and not lose sleep over it?  I worry that 
once recorded, it will never be reexamined in light of new 
information or by a different pair of eyes.

(Even with all these estimates, I shall still be left with some I 
cannot figure. Either individuals or family groups.)

I really assume that most of you will tell me to record as best I can 
with footnotes (but to go after birth and marriage records), but I'd 
like to know I am not alone in this dilemma.

Or perhaps I should be more liberal in what I record in the database
itself, but more conservative about what reaches the web-pages?

Israel Pickholtz

-- End --