Bosley family genealogical collection

To organize his data more coherently, Dr. Richard B. Miller devised a numbering system, an explanation of which is included below:

"I usually use the number 1 (one) to designate the immigrant progenitor of the family. Many people believe that Walter Bosley was the Bosley immigrant, but as I stated in an article in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin I am far from convinced that this is true, though he was doubtless the first Bosley in Baltimore County. There can be little doubt that he had the five sons named in his will, so it has seemed safest to simply assign the numbers 1 to 5 to these five sons in the order in which they are named in the will, assuming this to be their actual birth order: 1. Joseph, 2. John, 3. James, 4. William, 5. Charles. Following these key numbers, the children are numbered independently, in birth order so far as known. Thus Joseph had children who, on the basis of all available evidence, carry the number 11, 12, 13, etc. as shown on the Family Group Sheet for his family at the front of Vol. 1-I. John had only two children: Walter 21 and Joseph 22.

This same principle is used throughout the data, generation by generation. Thus a person bearing the number 467118 can immediately - without locating him by looking through the files - be identified as the eighth child of the first child of the first child of the seventh child of the sixth child of William Bosley, son of Walter. A problem arises in a family when there are more than 9 children. I have arbitrarily chosen to solve this problem in this way: the tenth child is designated by the digit O, the eleventh by the letter A, the twelfth by B, the thirteenth by C, etc. This system has been found to be workable, though I would hesitate to call it perfect.

For large sections of the family separate cards have been made for the persons who married the actual member of the Bosley family. These I have always referred to as spouse cards. In order to be sure a spouse is not mistakenly identified as himself a member of the family, he is given the same number as the real member of the family he married I have appended to that number an S. In cases where the family member married more than once, this is indicated by S1, S2, S3, etc.

Inevitably many Bosley records have been discovered in counties all over the country that could not be attached with certainty to any one of the five major groups, yet for which a sufficient body of data were found, sometimes spanning several generations, to warrant or necessitate making up Family Group Sheets. Yet these had to be given a handle by some kind of number. No particular system suggested itself, so I simply numbered them consecutively as they were found. The only distinction is that a number such as 19X27 indicates that this person was found in records that seemed to derive directly from Baltimore County itself, whereas 5Z15 would indicate a person whose record was discovered in some other locality - perhaps Iowa or Montana. Later, if further research revealed a firm placement in one of the five major groups, all such persons would have to be renumbered so as to conform to the basic pattern described above."