transcribing banns records on FamilySearch

[wimsey]

Hi

I've just been doing (for the first time) some transcribing of parish records on the FamilySearch website, which is interesting to see things from that perspective. It has been a mixture of baptisms, marriages and burials. Just now, for the first time, I've been presented with a page of marriage banns. I've read all the instructions that FS provide but they don't seem to differentiate between marriages and banns - so I have to provide a marriage date but of course none of the banns dates will be the actual marriage date. If any of you have experience of FamilySearch transcribing, could you advise what to do please - simply enter the final banns date ??

[wimsey]

sorry - 'transcribing' may the wrong word. FamilySearch call it 'indexing'.

[Guy Etchells]

Banns records come in many different formats some only record the dates of the banns, some include the marriage, for examples see
https://anguline.co.uk/cert/banns.html

In view of that I would transcribe what you see.
If the marriage is included transcribe the marriage if it is not leave the date of marriage out.
If you are not sure contact the LDS for further instructions.

Cheers
Guy

[wimsey]

this may sound odd but they don't seem to allow for leaving the marriage date blank* (I wonder if this is because FamilySearch is an American organisation (?) and they don't read banns in America (???)). For the time being I shall not attempt to index banns records.

*by which I mean if you don't enter a date you can't move on to the next page

[Pam Downes]

Do you have to enter the precise marriage date, or can you get away with just a year? Working on the basis that 'a year is better than nothing'.
Can't believe that you're the first person who's had this problem though, so the LDS need to update their instructions. Think you need to contact them, and ask, and at the same time point out that just because banns were called it doesn't mean the marriage took place so you shouldn't really enter a marriage date. (Remember I'm the person who can identify an entry in the GRO Index though the marriage didn't take place.)

Pam

[wimsey]

I've just tried again and it has accepted just a year, as you suggest. I assume (rightly or wrongly) that these banns records, when they eventually become searchable by people, are in a separate file from marriage records so that there is no mistaken assumption that a marriage actually took place.

I'm also assuming that some sort of quality control is in place so that everything I have entered gets checked by somebody before it becomes searchable. I only thought I would have a go at transcribing/indexing just to see how easy or difficult it is to do.

[Peter Goodey]

It's been observed over the years that FamilySearch don't know the difference between marriages and banns.