Scan Conventions

Scan Naming Conventions

The scanned images are named in the following way:

File Name

<year><event type><quarter>-<range>-<page> . <file type>

where:

year

The year of the event, 4 digits

quarter

The quarter, 1 digit, 1-4, 1 is March, etc. - omitted for 1984 onward

event type

The event type as B or M or D

range

The first letter of the surnames in the scan, or Unk for Unknown. If the scan contains more than one first letter, then all the first letters, e.g. YZUnk

page

The page number of the scanned page, 4 digits.

file type

The (graphics) file type of the file, typically .gif, .jpg or .tif

For example, Deaths 1875 March quarter, first surname WALTER, page 415 saved as a GIF file would be 1875D1-W-0415.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> [ /<letter range> ] /<year><event type><quarter>- [ <subsection 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) - omitted for 1984 onward

reference

The FreeBMDReference for the scan, to be used in the +S source type line when submitting data.

letter range

The range of letters covered, e.g. P-Z (may be omitted)

subsection range

The range of letters covered (which may be omitted), e.g. P-Z,

So, our example would be, in full: 1875/Deaths/March/GRO-D2530/P-Z/1875D1-W-0415.gif, and the reference number to be included in submissions would be GRO-D2530.

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