Reader Alex Daw asked an excellent question on my blog post Amanuensis Monday - Post 217: 1881 Deed of Land in Louisa County, Iowa from Eliza Robinson to Mary and Louisa M. Carringer (posted 5 May 2014), asking:
"Great work. Randy - possibly an ignorant question here so bear with me - is it a convention to number the lines? I can see that it would be useful but I just wondered if it's something I should be doing in future or if it's just something you like to do personally."
Alex, some of the professional genealogy works say that a transcriber should number the lines, and transcribe the document with separate lines as written. Unfortunately, I don't see it explicitly listed in the Genealogical Standards book.
I tend to use line numbers for legal documents (e.g., deeds, wills, affidavits, etc.) and handwritten documents that may be difficult to read so that a reader can easily refer to a specific line, rather than "third paragraph, 29th line."
I find that it helps me keep track of what I type. I add the line numbers while I'm proofreading it and comparing it to the document image, so that way I find anything that I missed. [My typing is so bad that I often skip a line...having to constantly look from one window to another is difficult - I don't touch type.]
I type this into a word processor first, than after I've proofread it I copy it to a Fact Note in RootsMagic 6, craft the source citation, and add the image to the Media for the person, and tag the Media item to the Fact. For deeds, I add an abstract of the document to the Person Notes, and for wills and other probate records I add the whole transcription to the Person Notes, with the appropriate introductory words. I then add the Fact Note to the Research Notes section of the "Detail Text" tab in the "Edit source" screen.
Thanks for asking!
The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/05/dear-randy-why-do-you-number-your.html
Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
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