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Archiver > TMG > 2003-12 > 1070677884


From: Darrell Martin <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Wishlist for TMG5
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 20:31:35 -0600 (GMT-06:00)


Hi, Caroline:

There is one limitation in TMG's approach that I think causes many people to try unusual ways to handle censuses. That is the artificial distinction (in many circumstances) between "principal witnesses" and "other witnesses", when combined with the equally artificial restriction that each Tag will contain precisely one or two "principal witnesses", in almost every case.

A limitation of one or two "principal witnesses" makes perfectly good sense when working with a Marriage Tag. It is also useful in order to deal with certain aspects of GEDCOM export, which (despite its weaknesses) remains the sine qua non of interprogram genealogical transfer. But it is *at best* irrelevant for many Tag Types, and downright frustrating with some. Census event Tags are the most discussed example of the latter.

All that being said, the principal/other witness distinction seems about as inseparable from TMG as beer and hot dogs are from baseball games. So some of us continue do things that may not seem "sensible".

Darrell

-----Original Message-----
From: Caroline Gurney <>
Sent: Dec 5, 2003 12:03 PM
[snip - Caroline was replying to the following quoted section]
> 5) Census support. I've been reading some of the crazy ways people
> are trying to put census data into TMG. Surely this primary source
> could be handled better? I'd love to be able to retype all the
> fields into a record and link to the image.

There are plenty of people using TMG to enter Census data in a sensible way
as well! I see no problem with the way this primary source is handled as
opposed to any other primary source. The fields available for Date, Place,
Memo, Citation and Witnesses allow all relevant information to be entered in
a logical way
[snip]





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Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter in exile in Illinois


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