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Archiver > TMG > 2004-10 > 1096734154


From: Darrell Martin <>
Subject: Why I don't use Betty's Census--but you might (LONG)
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 11:22:34 -0500
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Greetings:

I have had some off-list correspondence about "census systems". More than one person has asked me to compare my system with Betty's. Here is my response, not as a comparison (which would inevitably be confusing) but as a look at Betty's system -- both in general and, in a few cases, in detail. Please note very carefully that although what I am writing is "critical" in the sense of analysis, it is not intended to be taken as "critical" in the sense of condemning or complaining. I think it is obvious that Betty's system works for her, and others seem to find it useful as well.

Sources
-------
Betty is quite forceful about viewing each US Federal Census as a single source. To a certain extent, this is a matter of style. However, there is a key advantage in using "one household, one source". I use the Source Supplemental Memo to include much of the *contents* of the household record. For example, in my data the source memo for the 1850 census of Mt. Holly, VT, household of Samuel Williams, is:
dwelling 957 family 975;
Samuel Williams 61 M Farmer
Polly [ditto] 54 F
I include the source memo in my Bibliography output format. The "single source" approach does not allow for this kind of detailed source information to be output (just once) in a report. (On the other hand, the "one household, one source" approach does not always scale well. There is certainly potential for an unwieldy Bibliography, in a report covering a large number of people.)

I think the inclusion of "U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census" in the output form for a census source is unnecessarily verbose. The National Genealogical Society recommended form, as I understand it, does not include those phrases. If one says, e.g., "Seventh Census of the United States, 1850" there is no possible confusion.

Name Styles / Name Tags
-----------------------
Betty's name style approach, which is one of the key elements of her system, is a problem for me on principle. There are two basic issues. First, it records information *about* persons in their names, even though that information is not what I call "identifying". Identifying one person as distinct from another is one of the two main uses of names, the other being something to yell when it's time for dinner [grin]. I think if a user is consistent about it, identifying information can be entered as part of a name and it will make sense. "John Smith (who died young)" is one example, discussed at some length recently on TMG-L. The key to such names is that they could be used in a variety of contexts and still make sense. In Betty's system, "Walter L. Penn (given age 41)" is specific to one context, and even in that context is not intended to keep two or more Walter L Penns distinct from each other. Second, Betty's name styles put source information into non-source fields, even t!
hough that information may be known to be incorrect. In the example, Walter Lindsay Penn was actually age 46, not 41, when the census was taken in 1850, according to his Person View.

I think keeping data "where it belongs" in TMG is important for more than one reason. First, it helps the user think more clearly about the way things work in general. If one is in the habit of making sure that name info goes in name fields, and source info goes in source fields, then one is less likely to fall into traps of one's own making in other contexts. Second, it is a near certainty that one day the TMG user community will be faced with the question of how to get all this incredible information into a different format, whatever that means. Bob Velke (may God bless him with many more years of happy productive work) will some day put down his keyboard and pointing device and move on to other things. Long before then, though, it may become important to make a significant change in the way TMG data is structured. If that happens, it is possible that some of these carefully crafted "systems" (places as people, census data as names, etc.) may either make the change excessi!
vely difficult for the programmers -or- the programmers may have to leave us users of some of these systems to fend for ourselves. The effect might be nearly the same as moving to a different program altogether. (I promise not to be Chicken Little if you promise not to be an ostrich.)

Census Tag
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I do not understand the point of making the enumeration date the Tag date, and making the effective date the sort date. I don't have trouble with either one, in isolation; it's the combination that puzzles me.

Betty's use of Roles puts all household members other than the Head of Family into the same Role. Clearly, this is one of the ways TMG was designed to work. However, this approach does not allow for separate information about one household member as distinct from another in those persons' own sentences. All that can be said about each household member is that he or she was part of the household.

The default sentence structure for both Roles for the 1850 census ends with, "The official date for this census is 01 Jun 1850." I think this would be better if made part of the source, and therefore part of the footnotes and/or bibliography. In my opinion this is unnecessary clutter in a Narrative.

Census Name Tag
---------------
The Census Name Tag is never output. My subjective reaction to that is that it seems like a lot of work for one line on a Person View.

Conclusion
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As the subject line of this message suggests, this is not a system I would use. However, you might. It is clear that a lot of thought has gone into it.

For what it might be worth.

Darrell


Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Illinois
http://www.darrell-martin.net/genealogy



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