Scan Conventions

Scan Naming Conventions

The scanned images of fiche and film are named in two ways, the first being a full designation and the second being suitable for filesystems with an 8 character filename limit.

Full Name

[year][event type][quarter]-[range]-[page]

where:

year: The year of the event, 4 digits
quarter: The quarter, 1 digit, 1-4, 1 is March, etc.
range: The name range covered by the source fiche/film, three letters each. N.B. not the range of the page.
page: The page number of the scanned page (as numbered in the index, not per fiche/film), 4 digits.

For example, Deaths 1875 March quarter, WAL-ZAK, p. 415 saved as a GIF file would be 1875D1-WAL-ZAK-0415.GIF

8 Character Name

[year][event][quarter][page]

where:

year: The year, 2 digits
quarter: The quarter, 1 digit, 1-4, 1 is March, etc.
page: The page number of the scanned page (as numbered in the index, not per fiche/film), 4 digits.

For example, Deaths 1875 March quarter, WAL-ZAK, p. 415 saved as a GIF file would be 75D10415.GIF

Directory Structure

On FreeBMD, the scanned files are stored in a directory structure that mirrors the filenames, like so:

[year]/[long event type]/[long quarter]/[reference]/[year][event type][quarter]-[range]-[page]

where the definitions are as above, plus:

long event type: The event type spelt out in full (i.e. Births, Marriages or Deaths)
long quarter: The quarter in full (i.e. March, June, September or December)
reference: Our reference for the scan, to be used as the reference number in the +S source type line when submitting data.

So, our example would be, in full: 1875/Deaths/March/GRO-D2530/1875D1-WAL-ZAK-0415.GIF, and the reference number to be included in submissions would be GRO-D2530.

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