Incomplete Status

Among the primary reasons for the creation of this website was the wish to provide some data freely to people researching their Leitrim origins. The site itself is created from an underlying database. Among the primary reasons for the creation and maintenance of that database is the intention to use the data from it to publish articles and books for general sale.

If I were to continue to try to compile all my 'standard' data on all people on the database so as to include these details on the website, I long ago concluded I would never actually finish the exercise of data-gathering. And so publication would never be possible.

Accordingly I have settled on 3 possible values when considering if Research is complete: Complete - meaning that I have conducted all research intended into a person; Deferred - which means that there are aspects of the person's story that, for whatever reason, I want to explore further; and Incomplete.

I have used Incomplete to mean that where possible the person's birth, marriage, death, 1901/1911 censuses, appearance on the Tithe Books, and appearance on Griffith's Valuation, have all been searched for. But if the person had children, then at most only some of these have been at all researched.

As as February 2022 there are about 260 people with Incomplete Status. If we assume that amounts to 130 marriages, and that each marriage had an average 5 children, then that would mean adding 650 people for further research. If we assume that just 20% of these married and had children, than how many more would be added to the database?

Hence, while perhaps frustrating for users of the site, I have adopted the policy of, where research on a person is incomplete, adding a note to this effect in the person's Details section on the site. It is labelled "# Children (Incomp)" and should name the person, his or her spouse, and say something to the effect that they had at least "X" children, "some of whom may be detailed in these records."

If the viewer sees this in the Details section then it is worth looking further down to the Family section. Here should usually appear the person's Spouse, and also any children who have been included.