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From: "Caroline Gurney" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Birth/baptism
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 14:55:12 -0000
References: <000001c2dff3$8967bf80$a7b03dca@miettefunhouse>


Beli wrote:

> I'm new to TMG today. I'm grasping most of the concepts but the
> birth/baptism bit I'm confused on. (Can I end a sentence with an "on" or
> is it only "of"s that are forbidden?)

Hi Beli,

Welcome to TMG & this list.

> If I look at the Person view for Felix STRANGE, for example, the
> children that I have birth dates for are sorted in chorological order
> over the time span of Felixs life. But the children for whom I only have
> a Baptism date for are all grouped together before Felixs birth. I
> imagine this has got something to do with me recording the birth place
> of these children (as this is known) but not the birthdate (as its not
> known, by me anyway). I have added the birth place where known as not
> all of my mob were born in the same place they were baptized. I don't
> like to guess the birth date as sometime there has been many year
> between birth and baptism. (Births in rural Australia, "job lot" on the
> baptisms).
>
> What I want to be able to view is all of Felixs (for example) children
> in chronological order across his life span using the birthdate if
> available, otherwise the baptism date. I need help.
>
> I hope this makes sense.

First of all, you don't say which version of TMG you are using. Could you
let us know, please?

Tags in TMG appear on the Person View (PV) in date order. If you don't enter
a date, they sort to the top of the PV by default, although you can change
that to the bottom if you wish.

Each TMG tag actually has 2 date fields - the Date the event occurred and a
"Sort Date" which overrides the Date field when ordering tags on the PV.
Most of the time you will want the Sort Date to be the same as the Date but
there are occasions when you will want to make it different. For example, if
you have two or more tags with the same Date and you want them to appear on
the PV in a particular order. Another major use for the Sort Date is when
you don't have an event date at all but want the Tag to appear in a sensible
place on the PV. For example, you know John Brown married Mary Smith but
have no date for the event. You also know the dates of birth and death of
John and Mary. If you create a Marriage tag for John & Mary and leave the
Date blank, you can enter a Sort Date which will position the Marriage tag
between the Birth & Death tags on each person's PV, the correct place for it
to appear.

Turning to your problem with Birth & Baptism tags, this is happening because
you have not entered dates for the Baptisms. Since you have those dates, you
should enter them. The Baptisms will then show on Felix's PV. What's more,
the "job lot" Baptisms will now clearly show up as such because they will
all be grouped together on one date in the PV.

The fact that these children were baptised when they were several years old
is a separate issue for you to deal with and TMG gives you a number of
options. Do you have any evidence of the approximate birth dates for these
children or of their birth order relative to siblings whose birth dates are
known? If you do, I would create a Birth tag for them and put that
approximate date in the Date field. TMG allows you to use dates with
qualifiers such as "Before" "After" "Between" "Circa" and "Say". If you do
not have any evidence at all of their birth date or order, I would put a
note in the Memo field of the Baptism tag of the child concerned indicating
that, since this child was one of 4 siblings baptised on that day, they may
well have been several years old at the time.

Finally, please note that Birth and Baptism tags both belong to the Birth
group of tags and that only one of these tags can be Primary at a time. Only
the Primary tag will show on the parents' PVs. So, if you create a Birth tag
with an approximate date for the children for whom you have only Baptism
dates, then you will have to decide which of their tags, Birth or Baptism,
you want to make Primary and show on their parents' PVs. If you want both to
show, you can do this by adding the parents as Witnesses to the non-Primary
tag. Please note that TMG uses the term Witnesses (with a capital W) to mean
a person attached to another person's event. It doesn't mean they were
actually there and "witnessed" the event.

I hope this is all comprehensible. Please ask more questions if you are
still confused.

> Regards,
>
> Beli in Perth, Western Australia where the tulips never grow and even
> the lavendar died (from heat) this week.

I have some links with Perth and the early days of WA in my family tree,
including the black sheep who fought the first duel in WA in 1832.

Caroline Gurney
Portsmouth, UK



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