Bible Records

Our Bible information has come to us from a number of sources.

There are a number of groups such as the DAR who have undertaken projects to document Bibles of members as a part of their certification processes.
We have relatives who have passed down copies of Bibles or transcripts of family Bibles.
Many local libraries have copies of Bibles and transcripts that are readily available.
Occasionally we run across an old Bible in a store that we know will be lost to history because of condition. When we can afford to do so we purchase them and document them here, even if they have no relationship to our family.

Organizing Bible information faces the same challenge as the organization of many other items of a genealogical nature. Often Bibles refer to several families, especially where marriages are recorded in detail. So the challenge really becomes choosing an organizational scheme and then sticking to it.

The following list details the standards we are following:

Where the owner of the Bible is known, the Bible is referenced to that surname first.
Where the owner is not known the Bible is referenced to the most common male surname listed.
All Bible records are stored in Adobe PDF format which allows us to include our own notes and images of pages when they are available.
The first page of the document contains our notes on the significance of the Bible, source information, relationships, and other information not actually found in the Bible itself.
The source information is followed by a transcript of the information contained in the Bible.
The transcript is followed by images of the pages from the Bible when they are available.

Bible files are named using the convention of "bib" followed by the surname of the Bible owner, followed by the owner's initials, and then lastly by a two digit tie breaker. So a Bible belonging to Robert C. Whitehead would be named bib_whitehead_rc_01 assuming it was the first one with that surname and initials.

Bible records hold a special place in our minds when one does genealogical research for a number of reasons.

First, the records are often created by the individuals who were closest to the events and they often had first-hand knowledge.
Second, when official records are not available, Bible records are a good substitute. A clear example is areas of the Southeastern United States where records were burned or destroyed during the Civil War.
Third, in our experience there is little reason to "fudge" facts in the family Bible since it was a private document that would not be viewed outside a controlled group. Facts such as names, birth dates, marriage dates, and death dates should be accurate in this environment.
Fourth, using Bible information to confirm or refute other available sources is one of its highest values.
Fifth, we have a sneaking suspicion that writing down facts in the "Good Book" naturally encouraged people to be accurate and forthright.

However, in this and all other research there are always fallacies and issues of accuracy to consider.

Literacy rates often varied from household to household and knowing the literacy rate of a family can lend some insight into this problem. Fortunately the early censuses tracked literacy and you can get a few hints there.
Because the individuals and events were familiar to the person recording them, some information is almost always omitted. It is common to have nicknames rather than real given names recorded, and dates are often abbreviated to the month and year, or just the year.