Handling of presumed relationships

[Schnarps 0]

I was wondering if I could get input from other users regarding presumed relationships:

 

I have a few people I recently came across who might or might not be related to an ancestor of mine. At this point, the evidence is circumstantial at best (an official address book entry from 1848 lists my ancestor and this other person as living at the same location). I do not even have a full first name for this person, as he is just abbreviated with an S.

 

I am assuming at this point that this person was a brother or a cousin to my ancestor. How do other users handle this? I can't very well enter him as a brother because I simply don't know that to be true. But I want to enter him into TMG nonetheless AND clearly indicate the possibility/likelihood of a relationship.

 

In addition, I have quite a few pieces of information (wife, children, place of birth etc.) on someone with the same surname whose first name begins with the same letter S. Based on other circumstantial information I can assume that this person and the S. from the address book entry are one and the same. But I do not know for sure. So now it becomes complicated - how do I enter this man, his wife and their children into TMG and link them somehow to the other S. AND my ancestor without making this definite?

 

Thanks for any input - I just might not see the forest for the trees here but this has been a problem for me to figure out.

 

Irene

[Michael Hannah 0]

You have two issues:

1) a possible relationship between two people in the dataset

2) two people in the dataset that are possibly the same person

 

For issue 1) some people just use the Associatn tag type, or an equivalent specially created tag type, often customized to include the memo in the sentence. The memo would explain the relationship between the two Principals, or possibly between a Principal and a set of Witnesses. Custom roles can be helpful here. However, this does not cause automatic ancestor or descendant relationships to be created. For possible parent/child relationships I define a full set of “*-Can” relationship tag types for these “candidate” or potential parent/child relationships to be recognized, but there are pros and cons to doing that.

 

For issue 2 ) you could do the same as above and explain the relationship as possibly duplicate people. An example of a custom tag type is my "Duplicate" tag that links two or more person entries in my dataset that I suspect may actually be the same person, but have not yet chosen to merge their records. Its sentence "[P1] is possibly a duplicate of [P2]" permits as many people to be linked as necessary. I try to put the person whose record I think I am likely to keep, when/if I merge, as P1, the second as P2, and any others as Witnesses with the role Duplicate, but the sentence works regardless. The memo records why I suspect they are the same, and having the separate tag allows linking Research Tasks that might resolve the question to that tag. I also have a similar "DupNil" tag to record my conclusions that two (or more) person entries are not the same individual even though they might appear to be. This keeps me from revisiting this issue for these entries.

[Schnarps 0]

You have two issues:

1) a possible relationship between two people in the dataset

2) two people in the dataset that are possibly the same person

 

For issue 1) <..> For possible parent/child relationships I define a full set of "*-Can" relationship tag types for these "candidate" or potential parent/child relationships to be recognized, but there are pros and cons to doing that.

 

Michael,

 

Thank you, this was very helpful - I like the Duplicate tag solution. Especially thanks for giving this much detail. That'll make it much easier for me to implement.

 

Would you mind elaborating some more on the "*-can" relationship tags? I have never created custom relationships before so I am a bit unsure as to how to proceed with this. Thank you very much for your help!

 

Irene

[Michael Hannah 0]

Would you mind elaborating some more on the "*-can" relationship tags? I have never created custom relationships before so I am a bit unsure as to how to proceed with this.

Happy to do so, Irene,

 

There is much in the TMG help, in GTMOTMG, and Terry's Primer, about relationship tags, but the key point is that one relationship tag links one child to one parent. TMG automatically changes the displayed "name" of the tag for the benefit of the view of the user depending upon whether you are viewing the parent's Details or the child's Details, and depending upon the settings of the SEX flags for each person, but it is really just one tag. Therefore, you do not create a Father-Can tag type and a Son-Can tag type, and all the other variations. You only create a "-Can" tag type in the Relationship group.

 

Under the TMG Menu "Tools" select "Master Tag Type List". On the screen that pops-up, click the "Add" button to add a new tag type. On the Tag Type Definition screen General tab on the right click the button to create this new tag type within the Parent/child relationship group. This will cause all boxes except Label: to be greyed out. In the Label put only "-Can". (I stick to the standard of having a leading '-' and initial capital letter, to match the standard tags of this type, but that is just my style.) Now just click on the "OK" button, as that is all you need to do to create the complete set of this new relationship tag type. Since relationship tags have no sentences, there is no default sentence to create. Now you can link a parent and a child using this tag type.

 

Hope this is understandable,

[Terry Reigel 0]

Michael has told you how to create a "-Can" relationship tag. But a word on it's use is also in order. The only thing different about a -Can tag, or an -Ado or -Fst or any other variety for that matter, is that the label appears in the Person View. So far as I know, the only report it shows in is the Individual Detail report.

 

In all other respects is behaves like a regular -Bio tag: if you make it Primary, the on-screen views and report look like it is a proven blood relationship (except for the Details view and Individual Detail report as mentioned above). If you don't make it primary the tag sits in the Tag Box in the Details view of both the parent and child and does nothing more.

 

So it serves little more than an on-screen reminder. To make it meaning full you still need to enter notes about it elsewhere.

[Michael Hannah 0]

Terry is absolutely right, and I should have expanded on that. I make sure these relationships are non-primary so that they do not show up anywhere but on-screen (and the ID report). I do the equivalent for my Duplicate tag in making sure that I "de-select" that tag type from printing in any "normal" report. Like a number of things that I find it convenient to record internal to my TMG data, I use both the "-Can" tags and the "Duplicate" tags as simply "reminders" to me internal to TMG about my current "guesses" about these relationships. I do not include these "reminders" in most reports. However, I like having them show in the ID report as I consider that report as intended for the maintainer of the data, i.e. me.

 

But then, I think that is what you were asking for: how does one record the link in TMG so you can remember it, but without having it show as definite.

[Schnarps 0]

Michael and Terry,

 

I very much appreciated your help and thoughts with regards to this issue. It really helped me to understand this much better. Also I am very relieved that I won't have to enter all possible relationship tags, just the "-can" tag.

 

I still wish there were a way to, let's say, color-code such presumed relationships to make them stand out more strongly visually. But I will quite happily go with the "-can" tags as well...

 

Again thank you much!

 

Irene

[Terry Reigel 0]

You're welcome, Irene.

 

You can't color-code the Relationship tags (although that feature has been suggested) but you can color-code the People with Accents. This would require creating a custom flag - say "Can" - then setting that flag to Y for each person you have recorded as a parent-candidate. Then set Accents to give everyone with that the Can flag set to Y a distinctive color.

[Michael Hannah 0]

I very much appreciated your help and thoughts with regards to this issue.

Glad we could help.

I still wish there were a way to, let's say, color-code such presumed relationships

Sorry, Irene, but you cannot use TMG's color accents feature to highlight tag types (although that has been "wished" for by users in the past). Accents only apply to people. However, you could set a flag for all people that have a "*-Can" relationship tag or a Duplicate tag, and base the accent color for the person on that flag. Not the same, but might be helpful?

 

Hope this gives you (further) ideas,

 

========

Added: Gee, Terry and I must have been typing responses at the same time.

Edited November 23, 2008 by Michael Hannah

[Schnarps 0]

Thanks again to the both of you! I used custom flags in the past and might do that here then.

 

Have a good week,

Irene