Submitting New Data to the Catley Database

Background

The Catley Database has been on-line since 1998 and is being used by an ever increasing population of Catley researchers. At first there were less than half a dozen contributors, now there are over 50; some post data rarely, others are regular contributors and the range of data events captured is now very broad. The database is not intended to be a genealogical database linking family groups into trees, that is more properly the role of Personal Ancestral File [PAF], Family Tree Maker [FTM], The Master Genealogist [TMG] and other specialist genealogical software software. The Database was set up to be a repository of events [births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, etc.] experienced by holders of the Catley, Cattley and associated surnames on their journey through life. It is not intended to duplicate other databases, such as the IGI and UK Census data, which are now readily accessible via the World Wide Web [although the Database does contain some records extracted from the IGI and UK Censuses before the latter were available on-line].

Database Structure

The underlying Microsoft Access database has a simple structure but is capable of storing almost any event. The database pages you see on the website are reports created from the Access database; they are separated into chronological bands for convenience. Once the key fields [Year or Date, Event, Name, Relationship, Relatives, Place and Source] have been filled in any remaining information goes in the Notes. The inclusion of a Submitter code in most cases allows the person originally supplying the information to be consulted in the event of a query. The example below [my great-grandmother's baptism in the Church Hulme parish register] illustrates the database fields which are copied to the website pages.

Field	Example
Year	1836
Date	14 Aug 1836
Event	C
Forename	Caroline
Surname	CATLEY
Relationship	dau
Relatives	Joseph & Sarah
Place	Church Hulme, St. Luke
County	CHS
Source	PR
Submitter	CHRISN
Notes	father a farmer of Cranage

Updates

Ideally the information from the above example would be submitted thus: 14 Aug 1836, C, Caroline CATLEY, dau of Joseph & Sarah, Church Hulme, St. Luke, CHS, PR, CHRISN, father a farmer of Cranage

New data may also be submitted in the form of tab-delimited text files, preferably in this format. This method is most suitable for adding large batches of data from a new source and was particularly useful in the early days. However, many sources have now been 'mined out', at least to some extent, and most new data comes in relatively small amounts as researchers come across, e.g. parish registers with just a few entries for the Catley or Cattley surnames. In these cases I am happy to accept information in any convenient format subject to the following guidelines:

• Please check that the Database does not already contain an identical entry. However, new records will be accepted with additional information or a more reliable source, e.g. an original parish register entry is always preferable to an IGI entry.
• Each new record should begin on a new line; ideally there should be a blank line between each record.
• The date, or at least the year, must be given. Please submit dates in the following format dd mmm yyyy, e.g. 23 Apr 1564, and don't use ordinal numbers [1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.] for the days as they cannot be cut-and-pasted directly into the database.
• The type of event must be unambiguous for each new entry. Don't use 'B' for births or baptisms, 'B' means 'burial' and 'C' means baptism/christening. It is best to spell out the event type for each proposed new entry or to group sets of entries of the same event type together making it clear what the event type is.
• Please don't submit Excel spreadsheets containing dates in a single column. Excel cannot handle dates prior to the 20th century and although there are several elegant ways of working around this restriction, there is always the danger that we will end up with a mess.
• Please try to supply Place information as the place name [including a church or cemetery name as appropriate]. If you know the Chapman code for the County/Country please use it - it saves me having to look it up.
• Always cite your source; if you found the data on a web page the source should be 'WWW' and any further source information should be added as a Note.
• Always use this title for your EMail message Catley Database Submission; this link may be used to create the envelope for an appropriate submission message.

Please note that from November 2008 all EMail messages containing information for inclusion in the Database must be titled 'Catley Database Submission'.
The CATLEY-L Mailing List [Catley@rootsweb.com] is now so lively that I cannot keep up with all the messages!

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