235206706 Enhancement Suggestion (FR Somerset Coordinator)

[ghost]

Issue reported by FR Somerset Coordinator at 2022-06-15 07:11:46 UTC Time: 2022-06-15T07:06:22+00:00 Session ID: Problem Page URL: []() Previous Page URL: https://www.freereg.org.uk/contacts/new Reported Issue: Please see my reply of yesterday to contact no 235083426 on the contacts system.

This is one of the many many cases where a question mark is recorded in the FreeREG record instead of the sex of the child baptised.

As far as I can see an explanation of the reason for this particular kind of ? is not given anywhere in the Researcher Help pages, only the explanation for a question mark eg at the end of a name or in UCF.

So, perhaps it should be added to the Help pages?

Although, as I said to the contact, despite there being millions of such ?s in the FR records, this is the first time someone has written in to me about one!

Jackie James

[PatReynolds]

Moving forwards people should leave blank.

Need to remove "?" leaving blank, M and F as three remaining options.

@SteveBiggs notes Winreg inserts a dash. @PatReynolds to add to Unitt definition (blank)

[SteveBiggs]

In WinREG, for the sex field, you can select either Male, Female, Unknown or blank. If you select Unknown, WinREG puts a hyphen "-" in the field and when the file is uploaded to FreeREG, it remains as a hyphen. FreeREG accepts this without reporting an error, however when you edit a record online in FreeREG you are presented only with either M, F, ? or blank.

The Help section on FreeREG states you should enter:

• a single character from f, F, m, or M
• leave blank where the sex is not stated
• if the entry is illegible, put ?
• if you find just a ‘-’ (a hyphen) or a ‘?’ in a transcript, put ?

[DeniseColbert]

Once transcribers are no longer using WinREG, a rake task to find all "-" in sex field and replaced with "?"