Measure Twice, Cut Once: Lessons in Data Entry

It was a late night at the Church. But on the bright side, I got to
see it lit up! (Haha, get it, on the bright side..lit up... okay
try not to judge me for that...)

I learned a valuable lesson last Thursday: the saying "measure twice, cut once" should also be "check data twice, enter once."  I spent last Thursday checking my database, in addition to entering queries in an effort to pick out general statistics and trends. As I was double checking one of my entries, I noticed a name on the monument in a photo that I didn't remember seeing in my entry. I double checked my entry and nope, it was not there. The name I missed happened to be the third name on the monument and not the last name. This meant I had to insert two new columns for First and Last Name 3, four new columns for birth and death year & date 3, one new column for Age 3, and had to rename all of the columns following these newly inserted columns. Easy enough you may think, but Access has this funny little quirk where when you rename a column it forces you back to the primary key and you have to scroll all the way back to where you need to go each time. Also, it doesn't allow you to have a column named the same thing twice. Thus, I first renamed each column without a space between the name and the number (e.g. Birth Date4 v.s. Birth Date 4), got forced back to the primary key, and then went back and put spaces in, of course again getting returned to the primary key after each adjustment. After this was complete, I had to ensure that all of the other entries were aligned with the new columns. This took me about 3ish hours to finish in total. When collecting my data I had somehow neglected to write the third name down and so missed it when I was entering everything into my database. Lesson learned well last Thursday: ensure all data is accurate before entering into database.

Note how much smaller the ledger stone is for the burial
on the far left (2 year old). I could not quite get it into the picture,
but you can also kind of see how much longer the monument
on the far right (an adult) is from the one on the left. 

I would like to share one interesting query that I completed last Thursday. You may remember that in my first post I talked about how I was interested in comparing child monument trends at Ross Bay to St. Stephen's. At Ross Bay it was noted that when children (<12 years old) were buried individually, they had smaller monument sizes than adult monuments. If they were not buried individually, they were included on family monuments or within family plots. Essentially, in the area looked at (Potter's Field and General Section M), no children's burials were noted to have been individual with a full sized monument. After completing a quick query including age, plot type, monument class, name, and notes, I found that this trend is consistent at St. Stephen's. It is so consistent actually, that a particular monument type (concrete slant faced monument with plaster top) used for both adult and children's burials actually changes in

Without scale it is hard to tell how small this monument is.
However, it was approximately 13 cm smaller than the
smallest adult monument of this type. 

size depending on the age category it belongs to. While not differing hugely in width, there is a considerable difference regarding the length of the monuments, with the average child's monument being 32cm smaller.This trend was also noted with the pilaster column monument type. The average adult pilaster column varies in size (measuring the column only, not the base or any urn decoration) and is at its smallest still 13 cm taller than a child's pilaster column. In total there are 10 monuments that are either dedicated to children, or include children on them. Not one of these monuments is full sized, dedicated to a child only, and has its own plot. Only one monument dedicated to a child is full sized and it is placed within a family plot rather than having its own plot. This particular monument belongs to an infant buried elsewhere in the cemetery. To conclude, last Thursday was a long day (10 hours), but I learnt a valuable lesson regarding data entry (dually noted for the future), and I also discovered an interesting trend in the cemetery. Overall, it was a productive day!