Journal vs. not quaranteed mother

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

There is often a situation where all children of a husband are known. But exact date of marriage is not know so it is not possible to be sure that wife is a mother of earlier children.

Example: Children are born 1700, 1702, 1704 and 1706. Marriage is know to be before 1704 and it is known that children born 1704 and 1706 are children of the wife aswell.

It is very much assumable that children born 1700 and 1702 have same mother, but can not be proofed. So TMG7 point of view these children have father but not mother.

 

Now the tricky part. When printing Journal from wife-line, only those children where wife is listed as mother will show in report. I would like to get all children listed but separately and noted, because it is not proved that they are children of this wife.

 

I believe this is a quite common issue which some of you have allready thought about.

 

What is a best practize or any good way to solve this? All ideas are very much appreciated.

 

Peter

[Roy_Delos_Reyes 0]

There is often a situation where all children of a husband are known. But exact date of marriage is not know so it is not possible to be sure that wife is a mother of earlier children.

Example: Children are born 1700, 1702, 1704 and 1706. Marriage is know to be before 1704 and it is known that children born 1704 and 1706 are children of the wife aswell.

It is very much assumable that children born 1700 and 1702 have same mother, but can not be proofed. So TMG7 point of view these children have father but not mother.

 

Now the tricky part. When printing Journal from wife-line, only those children where wife is listed as mother will show in report. I would like to get all children listed but separately and noted, because it is not proved that they are children of this wife.

 

I believe this is a quite common issue which some of you have allready thought about.

 

What is a best practize or any good way to solve this? All ideas are very much appreciated.

 

Peter

 

One either has to assume the children are the children of that wife or assume that they are from some other female or females. Lacking any indication that the children are not from that wife I'd link them to that wife and note that there is a possibility that such may not be the case but no evidence, at this point in time, is available to make a solid determination.

[Terry Reigel 0]

Actually you can now quite easily solve this in TMG7.

 

First, do not enter the supposed mother as the mother of the early children. Then, add a NarrativeChildren tag to the father alone, and perhaps another for the father and mother together. In each, customize the sentence to properly reflect the data - for example, have the one for the father alone say something like "Mother was most likely the mother of these children, but that has not been proved." In the one for both parents say something like "Children of Father and Mother include the following, and most likely those above as well."

 

Details of using the NarrativeChildren tag can be found in my ariticle on Customizing the "Children of..." Statement.

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

Actually you can now quite easily solve this in TMG7.

 

First, do not enter the supposed mother as the mother of the early children. Then, add a NarrativeChildren tag to the father alone, and perhaps another for the father and mother together. In each, customize the sentence to properly reflect the data - for example, have the one for the father alone say something like "Mother was most likely the mother of these children, but that has not been proved." In the one for both parents say something like "Children of Father and Mother include the following, and most likely those above as well."

 

Details of using the NarrativeChildren tag can be found in my ariticle on Customizing the "Children of..." Statement.

 

Terry/Roy,

thank you for your help. If I understand right this still does not get all children printed when printing journal from wife-line. Journal only prints children which has wife as a mother. I have selected in options "Include spouse events" but this does not print children (I assume in order to avoid dublicate list of children).

Do I do something wrong and not get early/additional children printed or maybe it cannot be done?

If doing like Roy says, it would work, but doing that way I might end up having incorrect data in database.

 

Peter

[Terry Reigel 0]

Yes, Peter,

 

As you say, my suggestion will work as you like if you print the father's line. But if you print the mothers, they will not. I didn't think about that issue, and I don't know a good solution. You could list them within the intro statement - "... and she was also the likely mother of his children James, John, and Mary..." but that's not a real good solution.

[retsof 0]

I have a situation in Ritchie Co WV that I still haven't figured out. There may not be an answer. The same named child has two birth records on adjacent lines of the birth ledger. Both records have the same father. The first line lists the first wife as the mother and the second line lists the second wife as the mother. The birthdate is about a month after the marriage of the second wife, but I found no local death record for the first wife. With the internet and the SSDI now, perhaps it's time for another look.

 

One or the other will probably end up as the primary mother, probably the second wife, but it's uncertain.

Edited May 7, 2008 by retsof

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

I have a situation in Ritchie Co WV that I still haven't figured out. There may not be an answer. The same named child has two birth records on adjacent lines of the birth ledger. Both records have the same father. The first line lists the first wife as the mother and the second line lists the second wife as the mother. The birthdate is about a month after the marriage of the second wife, but I found no local death record for the first wife. With the internet and the SSDI now, perhaps it's time for another look.

 

One or the other will probably end up as the primary mother, probably the second wife, but it's uncertain.

 

Good example in these circumtances, but sorry to say because genealogywise it is not that "good".

Anyway, from TMG point of view you end up having same problem as I do. Whenever you print Journal from either wife-line, you will not get this child mentioned at all. Would it be great to get these children mentioned one way or another.

[Terry Reigel 0]

Looking at this again, I think I suggested the wrong solution. I'd now suggest attaching all the children to the mother, and then adding a JournalChildren tag to the two parents with wording something like: "The following are the children of Father, and Mother is clearly the mother of the last four, and most likely of the others as well."

 

This way you have all the children listed for both parents, and accurately state what you know about their mother.

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

Looking at this again, I think I suggested the wrong solution. I'd now suggest attaching all the children to the mother, and then adding a JournalChildren tag to the two parents with wording something like: "The following are the children of Father, and Mother is clearly the mother of the last four, and most likely of the others as well."

 

This way you have all the children listed for both parents, and accurately state what you know about their mother.

 

Thank you Terry again. I suppose this was what Roy mentioned earlier. This would affect to all relationship calculations etc. I see a smalll danger there.

 

However, I have not tested yet, but I had an other idea. To create a new tag where parents are principals and children witnesses.

Then principal sentence something like "He and she might have more children together named: "list of witnesses".."

Witness sentence "His/Her other mother/father might be ...."

 

Would this work? Comments please

 

Peter

[Terry Reigel 0]

That would be fine, but wouldn't fix the list of children in the Journal which I thought was the idea.

 

You really have to decide whether you want the questionable children to be displayed for the mother in the list of children in the Journal. If so, you have to attach them to her with primary relationship tags. If you are happy with a note listing these children, and not having them in the "official" list of children, a tag like you describe will be fine.

 

Either will work - which is best depends on how you want the data to display.

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

That would be fine, but wouldn't fix the list of children in the Journal which I thought was the idea.

 

You really have to decide whether you want the questionable children to be displayed for the mother in the list of children in the Journal. If so, you have to attach them to her with primary relationship tags. If you are happy with a note listing these children, and not having them in the "official" list of children, a tag like you describe will be fine.

 

Either will work - which is best depends on how you want the data to display.

 

After some thinking I did choose additional tag.

 

However, the more I think this issue, the more I would like to see this as a build in feature in TMG. At least where I am from, thinking in all areas of life is getting more family oriented without "legal" binds. People are not married, but they create a family and children of a family do come from different fathers and mothers etc.

 

Now if we have a new couple which both have children from earlier marriages/patrnerships, from TMG point of view, families would look complitely different depending if we print husband or wife line. Family should allways look the same. So genealogy point of view TMG does it correct but family point of view we should do better job.

 

In Journal report we can choose "Include spouse events", however this does not include children of a spouse. And I would say that birth of a child is and real event.

 

My wish is that this would be thought to be a build in feature in TMG.

 

Peter

[Michael Hannah 0]

Hi Peter,

 

I also believe that a custom separate tag, like you decided seemed to do "most" of what you want, is a method in TMG that gives you a lot of control and flexibility. It is also what I prefer to use for "children" in a family that I know or believe are not genetic biological offspring of the parent(s). For example, see my tags concerning Adoption. However, this does not fully resolve the issue when you produce certain kinds of predefined reports that rely on the Primary child/parent relationship tags. Further, it is not what I would use for children that I "assume" are the biological offspring but may have little or no documentation, which I "think" is your situation.

 

In my opinion the Journal reports, especially when you choose one of the preconfigured styles, are intentionally the most restrictive in their format and enforced use of certain "standard" tags. I would suggest that the problems you are having are not so much with TMG and "standard" tags, but in the enforced use of only certain tags by TMG for fixed purposes in this particular restrictive report type. I am sure you noticed that TMG does not offer the option of defining your own sentence for a Relationship tag that links one child to one parent. However, a Relationship tag does provide for a Memo, which I would use as part of "my way" to record your situation.

 

First, I would define and use an additional set of custom Relationship tags. I have defined a set of custom tags that end in "-Can" which to me means this is a "candidate" for a parent/child relationship, my way of defining this relationship as an assumption. I would use this tag type for your earlier Mother/Child relationships, but would also make this relationship Primary since for these children this is the assumed biological relationship. This would also provide an alert on the Details screen that further documentation is needed for this relationship, but would cause these children to be treated in fixed reports like the Journal as her children. I would then add a Memo to each of these Relationship tags documenting that this relationship is an assumption. Then I would set the Journal report Options under the Memos tab for "Memos that are not included in the sentence" (which of course applies to Relationship memos) to print as Footnotes, and be sure to also check the box for "Include relationship memos". This footnote will be output whether the Journal follows the mother or father line. I even like where that the footnotes are output. If the child has their own section it is referenced in that section as part of their Birth sentence, if not it is simply referenced in the child's listing under the parent.

 

I have not done so, since this tag type is so new, but would probably "also" construct a NarrativeChildren tag to further highlight my assumptions as Terry has described.

 

As I always say, hope this gives you ideas,

[Michael Hannah 0]

Peter,

 

To expand on a comment I made above, I believe that the issue of "standard" tags is primarily a problem only in predefined printed reports. In my opinion, in the modern world these are being replaced by web reports, such as can be produced by the program Second Site. I believe the problems with the legacy printed reports are caused by the fixed (and often convoluted) method required to define and document linkages to the narratives of people in such reports. These reports have created ways that work well in leafing forward and backward through the printed pages for the limited set of "traditional" family structure linkages, but as you point out they have problems with "non-traditional" linkages and family structures.

 

In contrast, "web" reports have no such problems thanks to the hyperlink. Any two people related to each other in any manner, whether "traditional" or "non-traditional", can have their names in both narratives mutually hyperlinked to each other's narrative. Thus navigating forwards and backwards through any kind of relationship is a simple click. There is no need for fixed output structures or numbering schemes based on only a limited set of linkage mechanisms to get from one person's narrative to another's. Further, it becomes trivial to group a list of people based on whatever relationship desired where the names in the list are links to their individual narratives.

 

For this reason I choose to produce only Individual Narrative web reports, and share my genealogy with my relatives using web files on a CD. Even many genealogy repositories are starting to ask for family histories in electronic form rather than as printed reports. For me this web form eliminates nearly all the restraints caused by printed reports that are forced to be based only on certain fixed "standard" TMG tags and report structures. It is also why I am less concerned about these printed report restrictions and whether certain tags are "standard" or not.

 

This is just my bias but hope this gives you further ideas,

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

Peter,

 

To expand on a comment I made above, I believe that the issue of "standard" tags is primarily a problem only in predefined printed reports. In my opinion, in the modern world these are being replaced by web reports, such as can be produced by the program Second Site. I believe the problems with the legacy printed reports are caused by the fixed (and often convoluted) method required to define and document linkages to the narratives of people in such reports. These reports have created ways that work well in leafing forward and backward through the printed pages for the limited set of "traditional" family structure linkages, but as you point out they have problems with "non-traditional" linkages and family structures.

 

In contrast, "web" reports have no such problems thanks to the hyperlink. Any two people related to each other in any manner, whether "traditional" or "non-traditional", can have their names in both narratives mutually hyperlinked to each other's narrative. Thus navigating forwards and backwards through any kind of relationship is a simple click. There is no need for fixed output structures or numbering schemes based on only a limited set of linkage mechanisms to get from one person's narrative to another's. Further, it becomes trivial to group a list of people based on whatever relationship desired where the names in the list are links to their individual narratives.

 

For this reason I choose to produce only Individual Narrative web reports, and share my genealogy with my relatives using web files on a CD. Even many genealogy repositories are starting to ask for family histories in electronic form rather than as printed reports. For me this web form eliminates nearly all the restraints caused by printed reports that are forced to be based only on certain fixed "standard" TMG tags and report structures. It is also why I am less concerned about these printed report restrictions and whether certain tags are "standard" or not.

 

This is just my bias but hope this gives you further ideas,

 

Mike,

thank you for your response. You surely give many ideas.

I fully agree with you about web-reports. Actually that's what I have been refering all the time, Journal report with HTML-output.

Genealogy is great fun, but it gets real value only if you can share your reseach. That's why I want publish as much info related to a person as possible.

Due to translation reason I have to focus only on 1-2 different reports, Journal report is the main one. Our language structure is complitely different so all help I get automatically from TMG is appreciated.

Peter

[Terry Reigel 0]

I fully agree with you about web-reports. Actually that's what I have been refering all the time, Journal report with HTML-output.

Creating the Journal as HTML doesn't really help - it's still a Journal, which shows only a very limited set of people - ancestors or descendants of someone, their children, and spouses.

 

The solution to showing the more complex relationships that we all want to depict is a set of pages designed not for two-dimensional paper but for the hyper-linked world of websites. Such sites are not constrained to a simple two-dimensional layout but can contain people related in complex ways, or not related at all.

 

Check out Second Site for creating very nice websites created directly from TMG data, preserving all the details entered in TMG. My article on Using Second Site provides links to John Cardinal's site about Second Site, some examples I created, and the galary of some 250 great sites indexed by Keith Winters.

[Michael Hannah 0]

I fully agree with you about web-reports. Actually that's what I have been refering all the time, Journal report with HTML-output... Due to translation reason I have to focus only on 1-2 different reports... Our language structure is complitely different so all help I get automatically from TMG is appreciated...

Peter,

If web-reports is your goal, then I strongly urge you to purchase Second Site It directly reads your TMG database to produce web pages. While highly configurable, you can get great web pages just using the defaults, and it also has automatic language help similar to TMG.

 

Not affiliated with Second Site, just a very satisified user,

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

Mike/Terry,

 

thank you again.

 

Yes, I have Second Site and it is a great product, but I have not started to use it for publishing yet.

Translation to Finnish is quite complicated job. It is not just to translate word by word, but also whole structure of language is different. Also some sentences are allready translated in TMG and mixture looks quite odd, actually my first tries did look quite ugly.

I will make it work, but meanwhile I have to live with Journal (HTML) report. Also, Journal is printable, some eldery relatives get it printed from web and they love it.

Also bigger picture is easier to see from Journal.

I have studied fully descendants of 11 ancestors of mine (including all who carry that surname). To publish these studies from ancestor down, Journal is a great report.

 

It is great to see that there is allways help available. Thank You fellows!

 

Peter