TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2004-10 > 1096735575


From: "Teresa Ghee Elliott" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] Why I don't use Betty's Census--but you might (LONG)
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 11:52:38 -0500
In-Reply-To: <6.0.2.0.0.20041002092718.025d36b0@pop.sprynet.com>


Darrell,
I don't use the one source per roll of film either. I do however use the
name style as Betty does and find it quite useful. Like you, each person has
a different role, something I set up after I put the current sentences on my
website. I did that so that there were more options for output using
different languages. I think that the more ideas we put forth, the better
newbies will be though. When I first started out, I read Lee's and Terry's
pages hourly. The more ideas we can put forth, the easier it is for newbies
to figure out how they would like to set up their final system. I encourage
as many people who have thoroughly thought out their systems to do as Betty
did and put it in print. And I will gladly add it to my website if that
person has no where else to post it. Or a link if they do.

Teresa Ghee Elliott
I'm getting organized this year. Join me in August.
For Rutherford County TN Cemeteries www.Rutherfordcemeteries.home-page.org
For TMG sentences
<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~rutherfordcemetery/TMG.html>;




-----Original Message-----
From: Darrell Martin [mailto:]
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2004 11:23 AM
To:
Subject: [TMG] Why I don't use Betty's Census--but you might (LONG)

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
----------
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
----------
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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