How To Do Awards Rolls Work RIGHT

[Guest Rick Research]

With recent comments about getting research work "done" (i.e. PUBLISHED so that it can be used by other researchers and collectors) I will try once again to encourage anyone thinking of doing such work to look very seriously at this before starting.

Daniel Krause has come up with what we are convinced is THE BEST format to transcribe such rolls, so that while they are being worked on they are computer searchable AND present the easiest to read, most clearly delineated arrangement of columns to do such work. NOT doing it the best and easiest way to begin with makes RE-DOING it all over again an unbelievably messy chore indeed.

Here is a sample "transcription in progress" page, for the Baden Z?hringen Lion Order 3bX--

Column A should be wide enough to type in Last name comma First name and then any titles such as Freiher von or the like. Do not put academic titles in this column!

Column B should include Prof/Dr/Rank/Title and unit/job. If you put "M?ller, Dr. Benignus" in column A, all computomasheens will aplhabetize him as M?ller, D not M?ller, B.

Column C is for award date as DD/MM/YY if all three are available, or just year

Column D is for COMMENTS-- whether IN the original roll or while working on a Roll, as the above are. Gnomes proofreading other gnome's work (for NOBODY can proofread their own-- believe me. The mind sees what the brain intended, not what the fingers typed!) need to be sure that something is not a typo, or have attention drawn to something for whatever reason while the work is in progress.

The last two little columns (E and K here or E and F normally) are for odd little things that are needed while working on a project. E here is for PAGE numbers in the Roll, which is such a horror that having to flip back and forth searching for one entry otherwise would be dreadful. That last little column you need as a spare for something YOU might want to search out later.

Couple or actual page examples below

[Guest Rick Research]

Hohenzollern 3aX page, showing final version. The comments from the original roll are always useful, and that provides space to indicate other awards or later ranks and so on. Those last two little spaces above are used here for birth and death years-- of great use if trying to figure out whether a medal bar with a Hindenburg Cross etc was or was not possible:

[Guest Rick Research]

and from the Triple Ernestine Rolls

Here a final little column has been added at far right showing which of the three Duchies bestowed the Orders, which are identical among the three. Such little add-ons are better planned (and spaced) for than left out and squished in later!

We have seen numerous self-created versions which, I can assure you, do not work as well. Columns with last names separated from first names, "Dr" placed before first names, dates of award as first column rather than alphabetized last name...

those simply are not as easily read by eye as the nicely spaced full page width Krause Format is.

So for anyone considering embarking upon your own prodigious, under-remunerated labors PLEASE use Research Gnome Standard Century MMI Krause Format. Don't let what happened with VHS and Beta happen to YOUR work.

PS In my own case, as a terrible typist, I prefer typing out ranks in full rather than using the final abbreviations-- Oberstabsarzt rather than OSA and so on. SIMPLE enough at the end of all work to "replace all" in final editing.

In addition, keep MULTIPLE backups, both on your hard drive and on CDs or DVDs or whatever. I used to save each day's work separately in case of system failure so that months (and I mean MONTHS) of work would not all be gone in an instant.

[medalnet]

Would it be not better to have first name and last name in two separate columns? This way you could sort each data block in Excel separately and could even transport it into Access easier?

[Guest Rick Research]

No!!!!!!

Imagine wanting "M?ller, Heinrich" and getting every single "M?ller" who ever lived? That is precisely the impediment-- no first names with last names-- presented by Prussian Rank Lists. That is why we work so hard to FIND omitted first names and ADD them to Rolls.It may not seem important with 5 or 6 M?llers, but when there are HUNDREDS of them....

When embarking on a major transcription project, the more related information that can be placed in a SINGLE column, the better. The object is to make things compact and easy for the eyes to see quickly. (Time, time, the enemy of all research gnomes!) Names in TWO columns wastes space that is needed for other data that we are adding to make the Rolls better.

Believe me, we've worked our way through every possible variation. This is what works best.

If, for instance, one is lucky enough to have a WEIRD M?ller-- say Bogislav-- then it is just as easy to search "Bogislav" rather than M?ller. Happens all the time with work in progress, when only part of a name is legible-- and good old Bogislav turns out to have really been "Miller."

Erhard Roth put award dates down the left first column, which placed names in the center of pages-- awkward for alphabetical skimming. Because he did not enter marginal notes from the rolls or add any of the additional data which Daniel and I have been adding to make the Rolls we do more useful, there are large empty spaces on the pages in his format which also make running a finger down each page awkward.

Doing things in Krause Format provides maximum data (or space to add data), positions things for mentally scanning in the neatest format, and makes a common system which if adopted for other projects will bring things into universal line so that the same data is in the same place in all such work.

Sometimes, due to the nature of the source (Saxe-Weimar)it isn't possible to keep to this exact format, but when the Lippe Detmold Rolls appear, with each entry literally a little "mini biography," the advantages of this method of arranging data will be even more obvious.

[WNickel]

Would it be not better to have first name and last name in two separate columns? This way you could sort each data block in Excel separately and could even transport it into Access easier?

Hi Andreas,

I think, in this question it is useless to discuss... :speechless1:

[Guest Rick Research]

Not your own computer WORK-in-progress (which nobody else will ever see), but for PUBLISHED book versions.

You're welcome to cash register tape versions with 6 digits next to every award indicating the annual Rank List it is found in if that does anything for YOU, but to have a format which anyone else will be able to USE....

no.

Very definitely NO.

:catjava:

[medalnet]

Holly cow, I must have poked the wasp's nest

[Guest Rick Research]

Hardly. The active, mutually supporting Research Gnome Collective ALL use the same system. FIVE volumes of award rolls published last year, and twice as many in the works now.

As the PUBLISHED Vanguard Of The Gnome Proletariat I'd say that experience is worth sharing--

whether it is ignored

whether somebody slaves away at unmanageable self-invented sytems that are too awkward to work

whether all that effort results in nothing ever being published

well, Schade.

Time wasted, labor in vain, life's work to the grave with the worker et cetera et cetera.

Our system has proved itself as a working model and a published one. :rolleyes: