Sending Details to the Calderdale Companion

This page is intended to make the best and most efficient use of your time & effort in preparing and submitting information, and of my time in interpreting your contributions correctly, and adding the information to my Website.

I receive about 30 to 50 emails every day, and this means that I only have a brief time to deal with each submission. Therefore, the shorter your message, the greater is the chance of it being incorporated into the Website. Longer detailed sets of information are held in a Pending Folder for handling as time allows

Contents

• Sending details of buildings & places etc

• Sending details of People: Who should have an entry?

• What information should be sent about your ancestors?

• How should the information be presented?

• Sending corrections to entries already on the Website

• The Internal Reference

• The template

Sending details of buildings & places etc

If you wish to send details for general entries on the Website, such as

• Businesses & companies: business, partners, locations

• Churches: location, dates, incumbents

• Events: description

• Houses: location, dates, owners

• Mills: location, dates, owners

• Places: location, description

• Pubs & Hotels: location, dates, owners, licensees

• Schools: location, dates

• Societies & Organisations: location, description

• Streets: location, dates

please write a brief description of the subject (preferably no more than 150 words), and following the guidance given below on How the information should be presented.

If I need clarification or more details, I shall get back to you.

The Website has many examples of the sort of entry which want to submit ... you might wish to follow the format shown there.

If you have photographs which might add interest to the entry, just tell me that you have such a photograph ... please don't send me photographs or images without asking first

Sending details of People: Who should have an entry?

Information is welcome on

• Anyone who was born in Calderdale

• Anyone who came to live in Calderdale

• Anyone whose children were born in, or came to live in, Calderdale

• Anyone who lived in Calderdale and moved away

• Anyone whose parents came from Calderdale

• Anyone who had direct connections with Calderdale – such as Andrew Carnegie

• Any local man or woman who died in World War I or World War II, or who is remembered on a local war memorial

• It is hugely preferable if you contact me first, to ask whether a person qualifies for inclusion, before sending reams of facts and figures

• I prefer not to publish information about anyone who is still alive

What information should be sent about your ancestors?

Information on individual people should be submitted in the format shown in the Template below

How should the information be presented?

• Ideally, information on individual people would be submitted in the format outlined in the Template shown below.

  Please complete as many details as you can on the form

• Please do not send attachments, photographs, documents or copies of documents, as these cannot be handled by the software which I use

• Please avoid using visual formatting such as tables, highlighting, or different fonts

• If you think that a single photograph of a person might add interest to the entry, just tell me that you have such a photograph

• Please give the Internal Reference if you wish to refer to any individual or place which already has an entry on the Website

• The general format of the new entry will be

  
  

  Smith, John

  [1516-1588]

  Son of Elijah Smith [1490-1580]

  He was a draper in Hebden Bridge [1550], a glover [1570].

  On 1st January 1540, he married Mary Brown [1520-1602] in Halifax.

  Mary was born in Heptonstall, the daughter of Elkanah Brown.

  Children:

  1. John [b 1541]
  2. Mary [b 1545]

  The family lived at Stoodley Place, Heptonstall [1550]

   

  Entries comprising only

  
  Son of...
  
  Married ...
  
  Children ...
  
  Died ...
  

  throw little light on the family or on their life and times, but they might attract people who are able to fill in some of the details

• I frequently use expressions such as

  The family moved from Scotland to live in Halifax
  Born in Lancashire
  Born in Calcutta, India

  and

  He left the district to live in Lincolnshire
  She emigrated to Australia
  The family moved out of the district

  for any people who only had a fleeting presence in

• If a person is still alive, I do not like to include dates of birth or other life events without that individual's express permission

• Please help me to avoid misunderstanding your message

• Several short sentences are much clearer and easier to interpret and understand than long, dense paragraphs of text

• For other entries – such as churches, houses, buildings, pubs, mills, schools and/or places – a brief description of the major features and location is sufficient

• If you prefer to cut and paste a section of the Calderdale Companion and make your corrections/changes there, please make your changes clear – by highlighting them or by using a coloured background

• If you have your own website or online source of information, please send me the URL for inclusion on the Calderdale Companion

• If you wish to submit your own Memories and Reminiscences for inclusion on the Calderdale Companion, please send me an email with the text either as an attachment in Word (or similar) format, or simply in the body of the email.

  Don't worry about the spelling, punctuation or grammar

• Please enter Dates in one of the forms:

  • dd mmm yyyy

  • yyyy

  • 18??

  • c1923 [if the approximate date is known]

  • ? [if the date is unknown]

• Please avoid long narrative passages and family histories ... these are prone to misinterpretation

• Please do not include descriptions or stories which do not add anything to the facts of the story – I do not need to now why you are interested in these people, or how you are related to them

• Careless use of He, She, His and Her causes many more problems than you could imagine, when trying to interpret your details

  Worst of all are sections such as

  John Smith [born 1825] had a son William. He was a blacksmith

  which can be ambiguous.

  Who was the blacksmith here? John or William?

  It might be clearer to write

  John Smith [born 1825] had a son William. John was a blacksmith

• Another example:

  John Smith [born 1825] had a son John [born 1950]. John was a blacksmith

  would be better written as

  John Smith [born 1825] had a son John [born 1950]. John [1825] was a blacksmith

• If anything in your details is unclear and/or ambiguous, then it cannot be used on the Website

• It is much simpler to get it right first time, than to try and undo mistakes later ... believe me, I have had to do this so many times because of sloppy email texts

Sending corrections to entries already on the Website

If you spot an error to any entry on the Website, please send an email with the Internal Reference of that entry and the section of the text which is to be corrected with a clear indication of what the entry should say

If you prefer to cut & paste a section of the Calderdale Companion and email that, just make your corrections/changes there. Please make your changes clear – by highlighting them or by using a coloured background

The Internal Reference

Every entry – for a person, place or other entity – on the the Calderdale Companion is identified by its own unique Internal Reference.

This Internal Reference is shown to the far right of the Keyword for that entry, and identifies the entry precisely, much more clearly than writing

The Template

Please use the following document as a Template and add the appropriate details (or changes or additions) to create a new Word document (call it any name of your choice), and send this as an attachment by regular email to me at

calderdale@aol.com

Click here

to download a Template in Word format.