10 - General Information about these documents

Dates:

1. The actual date is used where possible.
2. When 'about' is used with a date, an actual year could not be determined from the document and a best guess is used for the year.  The guess was determined by the content of the document or possibly by other documents found either in front of or after the document as the documents were being scanned.  Example: 1860 about
3. When 'about' is used with an actual month or actual month-day, these dates could be determined from the document but the year is still a guess. Example: 1860-02 about; 1860-02-25 about.

What was scanned:

1. Anything with writing on it was scanned.  If the back of a document was blank, then that side of the document was not scanned.
2. In a few cases, documents were scanned that did not contain writing.  These would have included blank check forms and blank letter heads with the corresponding envelope.  This was done to show the documents that the family had at their disposal for use.