Scan Conventions

Scan Naming Conventions

The scanned images of fiche and film are named in two ways, the first being a full designation and the second being suitable for filesystems with an 8 character filename limit.

Full Name

[year][event type][quarter]-[range]-[page]

where:

year

The year of the event, 4 digits

quarter

The quarter, 1 digit, 1-4, 1 is March, etc.

range

The name range covered by the source fiche/film, three letters each. N.B. not the range of the page.

page

The page number of the scanned page (as numbered in the index, not per fiche/film), 4 digits.

For example, Deaths 1875 March quarter, WAL-ZAK, p. 415 saved as a GIF file would be 1875D1-WAL-ZAK-0415.GIF

8 Character Name

[year][event][quarter][page]

where:

year

The year, 2 digits

quarter

The quarter, 1 digit, 1-4, 1 is March, etc.

page

The page number of the scanned page (as numbered in the index, not per fiche/film), 4 digits.

For example, Deaths 1875 March quarter, WAL-ZAK, p. 415 saved as a GIF file would be 75D10415.GIF

Directory Structure

On FreeBMD, the scanned files are stored in a directory structure that mirrors the filenames, like so:

[year]/[long event type]/[long quarter]/[reference]/[year][event type][quarter]-[range]-[page]

where the definitions are as above, plus:

long event type

The event type spelt out in full (i.e. Births, Marriages or Deaths)

long quarter

The quarter in full (i.e. March, June, September or December)

reference

Our reference for the scan, to be used as the reference number in the +S source type line when submitting data.

So, our example would be, in full: 1875/Deaths/March/GRO-D2530/1875D1-WAL-ZAK-0415.GIF, and the reference number to be included in submissions would be GRO-D2530.

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