Procedures

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PROCEDURES

Now that people other than me are working in the MasonicGenealogy space, it's necessary for me to describe how we are going to update information on the site. This page describes procedures when new or revised information is obtained.

DON'T PANIC

The good news is that, first, most of the information already in place isn't going to change over time. There are only so many years in our history and they're only added one at a time, once a year. The districts are similarly bounded, and unless a future Grand Master decides to completely redraw them as was done in 2003, we're unlikely to have to do any major reconstruction. And as far as deceased brothers go . . . anyone who's dead will remain that way. Similarly, lodges are a relatively stable list; we need to concern ourselves with mergers and surrenders, but not so much with new lodges, and they usually appear one at a time, with lots of warning, and over the course of a few years.

Our main concern is with people: people being added - Past Masters, District Deputies, new Permanent Members - and dying off and being marked appropriately. When someone dies - particularly if it's recorded in the Proceedings - we need to update the entry in a number of places. It should be done by a script, but the level of sophistication is not that great. Sue me.

NON-PEOPLE UPDATES

These fall into general categories: Annual maintenance; Quarterly maintenance; and Events.

ANNUAL MAINTENANCE

Every year the Grand Lodge publishes its Proceedings for the preceding year. In 2012, the Proceedings appeared in July; when they came into my hands I updated the current Year Page. Until things become more distributed, I'll probably be handling this task myself. It involves selecting information from the Proceedings, including Quarterly and Special Communications; updates to Necrologies, Permanent Member information, edicts, the Feast of St. John speech index, District Deputy information, District changes (if any), and so forth.

I also pick up page numbers for Necrologies and edicts, and add them in to existing text if I've already picked these things up.

In addition, all references to lodges that appear in the Proceedings are added to the lodge pages. This is a once-a-year, comprehensive procedure, which I'm doing.

QUARTERLY MAINTENANCE

At each Quarterly communication, we get three possible results in which we are interested:

  • Edicts and rulings by the Grand Master. These will be available in text form on Facebook or on a Grand Lodge web site, and can be immediately added to the Edicts page. When the Proceedings come out, the page number can be added as well.
  • Mergers and other lodge charter events. These can be noted in the lodge pages, Usually a Special Communication will deal with mergers; I'll pick that up in the Proceedings afterward and can update the lodge page with the Proceedings page number.
  • Memorials and Necrologies. These are apparently decided upon a few weeks in advance and available from the Grand Secretary's office; they can be added (see People Updates below).

At the moment I'm doing these myself.

EVENTS

Anything else that happens during the Masonic year is likely (though not certain) to happen at the lodge level. These can be added to lodge pages by curators, or whenever I feel like doing it. This also covers interval rulings by the Grand Master, i.e., between Quarterly Communications.

PEOPLE UPDATES

There are several kinds of updates we will generally deal with:

  • New permanent members. There is a very high likelihood that we have the new Grand Warden or Deputy Grand Master somewhere in the database; he'll always be a Past Master somewhere, and is often a past District Deputy.
  • New District Deputies. These will be published at the time of the Feast of St. John; I intend to hold on to this task for the moment as well. District Deputies can be added directly to the district pages and as Grand Lodge Officers on the lodge pages.
  • Death of a permanent member or a Grand Chaplain. There will almost always be a necrology at the next Quarterly; there will sometimes be a memorial (and if not, there will be an obituary or a memorial of some sort elsewhere; at one time, permanent members used to get memorials, but that's not done anymore).
  • Death of a District Deputy Grand Master or, in some cases, a non-permanent Grand Officer or former Grand Officer. Again, most times there's a necrology.
  • Death of the Master of a Lodge. The Proceedings will take no notice. The Grand Secretary's office can generate a report, and we can make use of this; for example, I have a report from MORI covering the time between the last Quarterly and the date of my writing of this page, about 10 weeks; there are 21 Past Masters (and two Past District Deputies and one Past Grand Master. This is clearly the most likely failure case for consistency; only curated pages are going to be able to keep up with this.

NEW GUYS

  • For Permanent Members: New page, new link on the People page; picture from Trowel or elsewhere; updating of the brother's listing on the lodge page with a link to his page.
  • For District Deputies: Add to district page, add reference to Past Masters list on his lodge page(s).

DEATHS

When a brother dies, we will be informed of it by his lodge, by information on Facebook (or elsewhere), or in a necrology at a Quarterly.

The following areas need to be updated for Past Masters: remove the italics from the Brother's name in the Past Masters list. If the lodge page has any other listings, they'll need to be updated as well. I leave this to curators of lodge pages.

For District Deputies:

  • Create a necrology for the Brother. Follow the indicated format. You'll need the full name of the Brother, his district, any other offices he held (i.e., Junior Grand Deacon or Grand Pursuivant or whatever), and the lodge where he was raised, as well as any places he was Master. These are located on these four pages:
  • Create a Memorial entry for the Brother. You'll need the same info. Follow the indicated format on this page, and add an N-link to the necrology.
  • De-italicize the Brother's name in the corresponding District Deputy list.
  • If the Brother was a District Deputy in 1975 or before, consult the Senior District Deputies list and adjust accordingly.
  • De-italicize the Brother's name in his lodge or lodges' Past Masters list; do the same in the Grand Lodge Officers list. Add an N-link to the necrology in each place.

For Permanent Members:

  • Create a necrology for the Brother, as above. Add a "Memorial" link to the Brother's individual page (there are examples on the Necrology pages).
  • If the Brother was a District Deputy - and most will be - follow the steps above for District Deputies.
  • Grab a biography or memorial, if possible, and drop it into the page. If it's from the Proceedings (and other than Grand Masters it likely won't be, unfortunately), note the page number.

Please contact me with questions.