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Archiver > TMG > 2006-02 > 1138917267


From: Terry Reigel <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] More on marriage consent entry
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 16:54:27 -0500
In-Reply-To: <PAEMLBFNDOAKPLNEJCEECEOBCOAA.Jodys.gen@direcway.com>


On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 13:08:12 -0800, Jody McKenneyThomson wrote:

> Thank you for your response.

You're welcome, Jody. <g>

> I think that this marriage consent shows that she (or he)
> was not "of age". Since subsequent census records are NOT
> consistent with her age, this does help to narrow her
> possible birth year. That is important. It also clearly
> identified her father. Also very important!! Other
> sources such as census and tax records show that he lived
> for several decades after her marriage - so that is not
> important.

I would agree soundly. That's why I would particularly use the consent
as a source for her birth tag and the parent/child tag linking her and
her father.

> I would want the information about her father's consent
> to appear in the narrative - not in the footnotes.

That's your choice, of course. That's the beauty of TMG - you can do
it your way. <g>

But if the significance is in it's defining her age, and proving her
father, I don't see why that would lead you to put it in the marriage
tag. Nor, for that matter, enter it as an event at all (unless you
just think that's it's interesting to add "color" to the story.

But maybe I should back up a bit, and ask what the objective is
overall. Is it just to record the facts you find, and record them
carefully? If so, do you intend to eventually output the result
somehow? If so, how? If it's by "traditional" means like pedigrees and
Family Group sheets, the data should be entered so it is meaningful in
those formats.

Or is it to end up with a readable story; a narrative? Something that
others will be drawn to read? If so, in my view the data should be
entered so the narrative will be as interesting as possible. To me,
that says dry "data" that proves the facts should be kept in the
source notes, and the tags intended to be printed crafted to create
the most interesting story.

That doesn't mean that you don't put analysis, including discussion of
underlying source information, in tags. But rather, consider whether
these discussion are intended to be included in the output (are there
maybe two kinds of output - "pretty" for casual readers and "detailed"
with all the discussion?).

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that deciding where
something should go ought to guided by your eventual objective. <g>

Terry Reigel

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