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The small marks that stand in for born, died and married before a date.
Also known as: Genealogical symbols, Family history date symbols, Symbols before a date in a family record, Star and cross before dates
A compact set of symbols used in family trees and European reference works to label dates without words. An English-language reader typically meets them without explanation and reads the star as a footnote marker, which it is not.
A set of typographic marks placed before a date to state what the date records — birth, baptism, marriage, death or burial — without spelling the word out.
Contexts: History
Strongest in German, Dutch and Scandinavian publishing, where reference works treat the marks as ordinary typography. English-language work more usually writes b., m. and d., so a reader outside the continental tradition meets the symbols cold.
Regional convention rather than an international standard.
Central and northern Europe
There is no governing authority. Publishers and genealogical societies follow the convention closely enough for it to be readable and vary in the rarer marks, so an unfamiliar symbol is more likely a local variant than a mistake.
Small marks — a star, a cross, a pair of joined rings — set immediately before a date in a line of text.
The star is the commonest of the date symbols.