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Archiver > TMG > 2000-01 > 0946911364


From: "Terrence W. Reigel" <>
Subject: Re: TMG-L: Source Surety Values
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 09:56:04 -0500


I guess I come from a somewhat different place with respect to surety codes than
others who have responded. I haven't stopped using them, yet, but I haven't found
them to be of any use either.

One supposed value is to tell which elements of a tag came from which source. But
I want to record exactly what came from each source. So, for example, if I have
three sources that support a date, but one shows only a year, another shows age,
and a third shows the whole date, I record that information in the CD.

As for controlling printing, I prefer to create "alternate" tags to record
conflicting information, and use the "selected" tag control in the report
generator. For example, if I have several birth dates, I use the regular birth
tag for the one that I currently believe is the most likely to be correct, and my
custom birth-alt tag for the others. It has a sentence along the lines of ". . .
has also been reported to have been born . . ." so it makes sense when I want to
print it, and I use a sort date that places it after my preferred birthdate if it
doesn't already fall there, so it will print after the preferred tag. If I don't
want the report to show the conflicting dates, I turn off the alt tags in the
report writer.

One of the virtues of TMG is it accommodates a wide variety of preferences.

Terry Reigel

Connie Sheets wrote:

> I'd like to request a discussion of the surety codes.
>
> How do you use them?
>
> What practical benefits do they give you?
>
> How many of you ignore them completely (i.e. make no attempt to assign a
> value)?

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