Technical Information on GARD Dates

Display Date

See the main GARD Dates explanation page

Dates held by each table

Examples/Adverts/Registrations

Only the Year is held. A second 'accuracy' field specifies whether the year is 'circa', 'assumed' or 'direct ref'. Default accuracy is 'circa'. Where 'accuracy' is circa or assumed, a range can be entered e.g. 1850-1875. Where 'accuracy' is not 'circa', a full date e.g. 01/01/1900 can be entered although this is normally only done in the Registrations table.

Books

As Examples/Adverts/Registrations, except that default is 'direct ref'.

Copyright

For 'entry date', a full date e.g. 01/01/1900 must be specified. The 'publish date' is free form because sometimes non-date information was written in the register. No accuracy field will be available.

The registry entry date of the registration is used from COPY3 by default. Where this is not known (because the registration has only been seen in COPY1), then the date on the original registration form (COPY1) is used instead.

Note that the date used by the National Archives for filing the forms in the COPY1 repository is the entry date in the COPY3 registers and not the date on the COPY1 form, itself. Since the COPY1 volume listed for a registration is derived from the date in GARD, it is possible that this can result in a registration record showing an incorrect COPY1 volume number. At Sep 2008, this has happened in only one instance - The Golfer's Handy Record with form date 31/3/1894, entry date 2/4/1894.

Earliest Reference Date

The earliest reference to a game name shall be derived in the following way. The earliest non-circa date from all linked records (from the example, advert, copyright and registration tables) will be displayed. The later date of an assumed range will be used for this purpose.

Where there is an earlier 'circa' date, this will be shown in brackets. The later date of a circa range will be used for this purpose.

For the Copyrights table, where a usable 'published date' is known, the earliest of the entry date and the published date will be used.