User talk:Ironholds

Didn't mean to insult you

You've been given a Texas barbecue dinner. Bon appétit, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Re this. Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you or your work. I'm just not a believer in talking critically about someone else's work without giving them a chance to weigh in and/or to tell me that I'm missing the point (as I'm quite capable of doing). No offense intended and I apologize for the unintended jab. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Kick the bucket (?)

Hey, Ollie. How do you bureaucracy-mad Brits keep track of dead people in Britain, and in England in particular? Do you have some sort of central database like the Social Security Death Index in the States? Swimmer Irene Pirie was a four-time British Empire Games medallist for Canada, swam in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics, and married British swimmer and water polo player Frederick Milton some time during the 1930s. Her full name was Irene Catherine Pirie Milton, and she apparently died in Cheltenham, Goucestershire, sometime in December 1998. Can you point me in the right direction? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:00, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

So, you should be wandering over to the General Register Office's website; they're the ones who have the centralised records, I think :). Ironholds (talk) 19:10, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Have you used the database? Do we have a go-to Wikipedian who knows how to use it? There's a free version online, but it seems to be limited by year of the birth, marriage or death event to those events occurring in 1975 and before. Oddly, it also seems only to provide the month and year of the event, not the exact date. I was able to find the index entry for the Pirie-Milton marriage (June 1935), but no date is provided. I could not find anything for her death (1998) or her husband's death (1991), apparently because those event years fall after some cutoff in 1974 or 1975 after which the index is not available. I have no idea if I'm doing this correctly -- seems rather user-unfriendly. Reminds me of some property tax record searches in my part of the world. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Amusingly our land registry only kicked off in uhm. 2003. Oops! Your property systems > our property systems.

I'm not sure about access, but I suspect User:Andrew Gray probably knows a fair bit about government archival records. Shim? Ironholds (talk) 03:48, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Many vital-stats databases have cutoffs of that sort, ostensibly to protect privacy. I'm actually impressed with a 1975 cutoff, as my local version won't show any deaths more recent than 70 years ago (100 years for births, 80 for marriages). Nikkimaria (talk) 11:40, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Nikkimaria, it does seem strange that anyone would be concerned with the "privacy" of persons who died nearly 40 years ago. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:45, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

• Hi all. There is a public index to the register of births, marriages and deaths (nb "public" may not mean free-to-view; I believe Ancestry has a more up-to-date version) but as you've seen it is only a very limited index at best. It's actually quarterly but for some reason many people list the quarters as January (Jan-March), April (April-June), etc, which is why it looks monthly. You will not be able to get the exact details/dates/etc without actually obtaining a copy of the certificate, which costs about £10/$15 and takes a week or so.
• For deaths, you can try the probate records, which usually give full name + date of death. Links here but you will probably need to pay to see the actual details. (Again, Ancestry has a copy if you have a subscription there). Andrew Gray (talk) 12:48, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

• @Andrew Gray: I'm not an Ancestry.com subscriber, but have wiki-collaborators who are. Is there a single Ancestry account, or are there UK and American versions? If it's an all-in-one account for Ancestry, I'll have one of my North American wiki-pals look them up. Do you know if the England-Wales death birth-marriage-death records on Ancestry have a similar 1974/75 cutoff? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:45, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Off the top of my head - a) I think it's uniform (most American genealogists want UK data eventually...); b) I think the BMD indices are more recent on Ancestry and 1975 is just an arbitrary enddate for one particular database (eg/ freebmd goes up to 1983), but you'll still only get the quarterly indices - the certificates have not been digitised; c) the will records are the 'Calendar of Grants of Probate' (see fn 6 of Herman Landon for an example), but not sure how far forward they've been digitised Andrew Gray (talk) 17:30, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

So, the bottom line is even through Ancestry.com I'm not going to get an exact date for England-Wales birth-marriage-death events? If I want exact dates, I have to pay ₤10 to the General Register Office, and wait on my death certificate to be delivered by the Royal Mail? Can these records be viewed, in person, at one of the archival libraries -- or is it still just the BMD indexes by quarter? If exact dates are available for in-person research, do we have UK Wikipedians who perform this sort of work? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:53, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

That's about the sum of it (assuming you can't get them from other sources, eg probate, military records, parish registers, etc) - more details are here. Only the GRO (and the relevant local registry office?) will have the records available - major libraries will probably have microfiche copies of the indices but I don't believe they will have access to the records themselves. You can probably turn up at the office and get the relevant details but you may still have to pay; not sure how this works in practice. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:45, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Andrew. I will run out the threads though Ancestry.com, but it sounds like this is a road block as a practical matter. It quickly becomes a fairly expensive proposition to get the exact death dates if we're dealing with several dozen decedents. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:01, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. The probate records are the best source here, but they have some limitations - the Ancestry ones only go up to 1966 (as yet; this is being progressively indexed and more will become available), and the gov.uk ones are intended for cases where you already know the year of death. Pre-1996 records on gov.uk can only be searched by surname but show the printed index pages, which give you some contextual detail; post-1996 records are born digital & can be searched by forename but only show basic information. This may be Irene... Andrew Gray (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

And here's the husband (probably) - the probate indexes for 1991 have Frederick Charles Milton, also of Brighton, died 6 January 1991. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:50, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

That's probably Freddie -- same reported death year and correct middle name. That may or may not be Irene -- same reported death year, but different middle name. The GRO index record for their 1935 marriage seems to confirm her middle initial C -- for Catherine per other sources. It would be a remarkable coincidence, however, to have an "Irene Milton" die in the same location as Freddie, and it not be his Irene. Are the death records correlated with birth year in any way? Obviously, that would help confirm identity. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:29, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Age is recorded on the death certificate (when known; not sure what they do if details are missing) and the indices have an 'age' entry, which may be +- 1 year (can't remember if it's actual age or derived from year-of-birth). Probate records (probably) won't have it. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Don Vincente

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:40, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Ugh. This gives all us bibliomaniacs a reputation as evil criminals. There is such a thing as loving books too much, you know... ;) --Biblioworm 20:22, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, I also wrote an article on a bibliomaniac who saved volumes from Nazi secret agents; now that was cool! Ironholds (talk) 03:49, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Re: multilingual search at www.wikipedia.org

Hi Ironholds, wrt multilingual search at www.wikipedia.org, I have collected some stats, links, competitors etc at de:Benutzer:Atlasowa/multilingual_search, have a look. --Atlasowa (talk) 19:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Atlasowa; as said on the mailing lists, I don't think we're in the "building new things" stage yet, but I'm throwing User:DGarry (WMF) a link so he sees this :). Ironholds (talk) 21:00, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.

Oliver, I know that you were recently leading the charge to make changes to certain guidelines to clarify that mention of sexual orientation in the lead was permissible when it was necessary to puttthe life of the subject in context, or words to similar effect. I also know that under pre-existing guidelines discussion of race and ethnicity were also discouraged in the lead, except to the extent they were relevant to the subject notability, and that these guidelines were either the same or over-lapped. Can you provide a quick list of the guidelines that touch on these issues? My reason for asking is the Infobox sportsperson has an "ethnicity" parameter which probably ought not be there, and I wanted to review all of the relevant guidelines before I request that it be removed, so that I might quote chapter and verse if necessary. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

So, MOS:BLPLEAD is I think the main one. I've sort of dropped out of that thread, honestly; as I get older my ability to tolerate people insisting there is no problem here when their behaviour made me open the thread in the first place is much reduced. It's tiresome and I can spend my energy better doing literally anything else. Ironholds (talk) 11:39, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Uploading of the Cropped pictures

There is a picture at Commons that was taken by a person. I want to crop the picture and use it, but i don't know that is allowed or not. If it is legal, which License can be used for uploading of the Cropped pictures?Savior59 (talk) 09:23, 14 May 2015 (UTC)