Several dates on one map: how to avoid making Allika older by mistake

The catalogue year is a starting point

Rahvusarhiiv describes the document as a manuscript copy, dates its compilation to 1926 and records approval on 8 November 1927. These fields already rule out a single date applicable to everything on the sheet. Making a copy and approving it were separate events.

The sheet itself refers to a plan from 1921 and carries the copying date 9 January 1926. A red annotation containing the name Allika refers to a decision of 12 October 1934; beneath it is the date 11 February 1936. These layers do not make the map unreliable. They show a document being used and updated. The error would be to assign its earliest date to every visible inscription.

A catalogue helps us find and initially understand a document. It does not replace reading the image, especially when a conclusion depends on a particular word that could have been added later.

The underlying plan and the copy answer different questions

A reference to the underlying plan tells us which earlier document was used for copying. It does not, by itself, date the field measurement behind every line. The copy's date records another step: reproducing the plan for further use. Changes between those stages might have been added separately or might not appear at all.

“A map based on a 1921 plan” therefore does not mean “every name on this map is documented in 1921.” To date a particular name that way, we would have to establish that it belonged to the earlier layer. Otherwise we know the date of the stated basis, but not necessarily the age of each word.

The distinction can seem small until it changes a farm's supposed first mention by a decade or more. We need to connect the date to the particular claim for which we are using the document.

A later inscription does not become an earlier one

On the image examined, Allika appears in a red annotation dated 11 February 1936 beneath the text. We cannot move that name back to 1921 merely because the map refers to an earlier basis. A claim about a name needs evidence for the time of the inscription itself.

Think of a family photograph with a note on the back. The picture might have been taken in one year and the explanation added much later. Both are valuable, but they come from different moments. A map can have the same layered history, with additions written directly onto the original drawing.

The careful conclusion is less dramatic: the name appears in a later layer of a document based on an earlier plan. That wording allows further checking without creating an artificially early date for the name.

The decision and its annotation are another pair

The red note contains two distinct time references: the decision of 12 October 1934 and the date 11 February 1936 below its text. Recording only the earlier year would lose the date attached to the annotation. Keeping only the later one would hide the earlier decision to which it refers. Both matter, each in its own role.

Neither date alone proves that work on the ground took place that day. A decision, the addition of information to a plan and a physical change to boundaries are separate events. The map raises a question about their relationship; the decision itself and related documents are needed to answer it.

The catalogue's approval date, 8 November 1927, needs the same care. It does not date additions made after approval. We should not imply that a committee in 1927 certified a note dated 1936. An approved document could remain in use, and its subsequent history needs to be read separately.

What does “first mention” mean?

“First” requires a defined search scope. The earliest inscription we have read on one sheet is not necessarily the earliest occurrence of the name anywhere in the archives. That wider claim would require checking other plans, files, lists and spelling variants, then comparing their dates.

Here we are discussing a specific inscription on a specific document. The examined note confirms the name Allika in a later layer of this sheet. It neither proves that the name originated in 1936 nor establishes its presence in 1921. Further sources may narrow that gap.

Location is a separate question too. Early numbers 10 and 10a cannot automatically be equated with later A10 and A10a. Their relationship requires comparing boundaries and neighbours. Our earlier article examined neighbouring boundaries on 1935 plans; that result cannot simply be transferred to this earlier basis without independent evidence. Neither the age of a name nor a similar parcel number establishes ownership of the present farmyard.

A check you can repeat

Open the ERA.62.28.24149 catalogue record linked below. First record its compilation year and approval information. Add that the catalogue calls it a manuscript copy. You now have the catalogue description, not yet a reading of every inscription.

Next open the first image. Near the top, find the explanation referring to a 1921 plan and the date “9.I.26”. Examine the red annotation containing Allika separately: distinguish the decision date from the date beneath the signature. Write each date alongside the action it describes. Do not put them all in a column labelled “year of the farm”.

Finally, check your own caption. Can a reader tell what happened in 1921, 1926, 1927, 1934 and 1936? If not, make it more precise. If a digit is unclear, leave it unresolved and link to the image instead of completing it to fit an expected story. This exercise does not require guessing the signatory's surname.

How to caption this map

Each date in the caption should refer to a particular action or layer: basis, copy, approval or later inscription. Where the document does not establish when a note was written, that should remain an open question. A slightly longer caption gives the reader a way to judge what is actually known.

The archival reference serves the same purpose. It lets someone return to the document, find its other images and check the interpretation. A filename such as “old Allika map” can easily become detached from its source. ERA.62.28.24149 preserves that connection even when our understanding changes.

For the history of today's farmyard, a conclusion that survives another reading is more useful than a competition for the earliest date. If new evidence changes it, the reference makes clear which step needs reconsideration.

What is established now

The checked catalogue records a manuscript copy of the Rääsa-Oando sheet compiled in 1926 and approved in 1927. Re-examining the image on 22 October 2026 confirmed the reference to the 1921 basis, the copy date and both dates in the red annotation. The name Allika is not backdated to the underlying plan. Equating early 10 / 10a with later A10 / A10a remains a research question.

Separating those dates is a useful result: it prevents a future account from resting on an artificially aged inscription. The next useful evidence must connect a precise place, a specific record and that record's own date.