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Ron Siem

Suggestion for Census in future TMG version

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Would like to request a feature for Census records in a future release of TMG. This would be for the U.S. Federal Censuses.

 

Would like to see a grid open up in a census tag that would show that year's census form in a grid/Excel type format. The grid would display all the questions/data for that year's Census. Users would be able to use the Person or ID search to populate the ID for each person in the Name field of the grid.

Continue to manually inputting data or use place list data to populate remaining fields. Basically filling out the census into a grid form. There would need to be a separate form for each census or decade.

 

Data could be reported using the field names in grid.

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I have about 800 census events entered, with many more to go. A more intuitive entry procedure would be helpful. I find I am often going back to pick up little tidbits I missed, like the HOH's occupation, or the street address. A single form with a place for EVERYthing would help. But what happens after you enter the data into the grid and press "go"? Does TMG generate a "conventional" census event? What about citations? You'd have to be able to pick and choose a format, or perhaps "build your own". I think you've got an interesting idea here, but "the devil is in the details". Can you expand more on how you'd like to see this work?

 

BCT

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Census data is probably the area where TMG users have the most diverse practices. Some want the full census record recorded in a single tag. But others do something more like what I do:

 

- Cite the census in the name tags of every household member (marking those citations "excluded" if there are at least three better ones already).

 

- Cite the census in the parent/child relationship tags for each parent and child pair listed in the household (again excluding them if there are better sources cited).

 

- Cite the census in the birth tags of each member of the household (excluding if better cites exist).

 

- Cite the census for Occupation tags for each person who has an occupation listed.

 

- Cite the census for Immigration tags for each person who is shown as an immigrant.

 

- Finally, add a Census tag, with the Head of household and spouse if present as principals (but others make the spouse a Witness), and all the other members of the household who appear in my database as Witnesses. The tag also specifies the relationship of each to the head of household (often from information from elsewhere if not stated in the census), as well as notes the presence of servants or boarders, that the Principals were themselves boarders if that is the case, amount of real and personal property reported, own/rent status, ownership of a radio (1930), and relatives recorded nearby. All this entered to provide narrative output in proper sentences.

 

Ron's proposal probably has little chance of meeting the output needs of users with similar ideas of how the census should be recorded. It may be more successful for those who want the entire census record recorded, though output formatting may be a concern. Many users move to TMG because of it's narrative output. How would the output of such data get transformed into narrative?

 

In any case, I would think most users would need to separately make any citations to other tags they think appropriate.

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Would like to see a grid open up in a census tag that would show that year's census form in a grid/Excel type format. The grid would display all the questions/data for that year's Census.
Hi Ron,

 

I understand your and BCT's desire for some easier way to be reminded of all the fields to enter from census data. But, I also share Terry's observation that data entry of this source type is an area of great diversity. Perhaps I can suggest a compromise or alternative using TMG's current features. It is similar to what I already do.

 

Like Terry, I cite the Census record to a wide variety of a person's tags (e.g. Birth, Relationships, Address, Occupation, etc.). In addition to sufficient data to find that record, I put in that Citation Detail only what supports the tag being cited for that person (e.g. "Fred Smith, age 43, born in Germany" to a Birth tag). However, I also create a single Census tag for the entire household with everyone linked to that one tag. I cite the census record to that tag, but I also link a text exhibit to that tag. This text exhibit contains everything that was recorded for that enumeration. For me, how much is also included in other tags or narratives, or even the narrative/memos of the census tag, depends upon how close the family is to my main line. But the entire enumeration record is always available as the exhibit to the household's single census tag.

 

If you create such exhibits, you could develop a text template as a grid structure of labels of all the fields that could exist in a census record for a given year. If you have separate custom tag types for each year, you could store that year's template in TMG's Reminder for that tag type. Even if you have a more generic tag type that covers many years (as I have) you could still store all the relevant years' templates in the Reminder. Whichever type of tags you have, when you first create a new tag, just copy the appropriate template from the Reminder, and paste it into the new text exhibit as many times as that household has people. Now just fill in all the fields.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Would like to request a feature for Census records in a future release of TMG. This would be for the U.S. Federal Censuses.

 

Would like to see a grid open up in a census tag that would show that year's census form in a grid/Excel type format. The grid would display all the questions/data for that year's Census. Users would be able to use the Person or ID search to populate the ID for each person in the Name field of the grid.

Continue to manually inputting data or use place list data to populate remaining fields. Basically filling out the census into a grid form. There would need to be a separate form for each census or decade.

 

Data could be reported using the field names in grid.

 

I think that would be a great feature but may be complicated to program to make the data available in reports. Data you input to has to be geared to your planned output - narrative or tabular. You can do something now on a small scale (minimal data), using the split memo fields and a tabular report - List of Events (LOE). There is an example (Census Report) in my Screencast folder here. There are limitations to this system: you need individual census tags for each enumerated person (Copy Tag instead of using witnesses); there are only 9 columns in the LOE report; and data entry is tedious using the archaic pipe system of data separation in the memo.

 

With a view toward a method for basic census data entry in TMG using existing components I have asked for a system of data entry fields for split memos like those now for places in the tag entry screen, and in addition the ability to make multiple copies of a tag at one time (dial the number) instead of one copy at a time as now. I would also like, when entering census data, to be presented with a list of family members of the head of household, from which we could select enumerated persons. Not as elaborate as you envision but a foot in the door.

 

If you decide you want a grid of some kind to enter census data, be sure and check out the free census templates online (search Google). I have seen them in Excel, Word, and Works format - for all census years.

 

Virginia

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I pretty much use what Terry's TMG Tips article for census source types proposed. I have two types of census tags, the normal standard TMG tag and a second tag of my own I call "Census<1850". In the censuses prior to 1850 I have a witness sentence which uses this sentence:

 

[W] was probably enumerated on the census <of [D]> in the household of [P] <and [PO]> <[L]>

 

In use this in cases where I feel fairly sure about the inclusion of the witness person in the numeric counts by age and give it an appropriate surety. If I am less sure I change the sentence to read "possibly" instead of "probably" and give it a lower surety value. I am curious how others handle this situation

 

Neil

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Just about every census has a unique set of fields, and some fields are usually not filled in. Ancestry.com has clear PDF images of blank forms for many of the censuses (but I forget how to access them - I downloaded them to my computer years ago). Some of the column titles are quite lengthy, even if the field values are just one or two characters. Some forms have so many fields that Ancestry displays them in two sections. And of course, states have their own creative ways of laying out their census forms. Some forms have separate pages for different sorts of information. Trying to create the computer program to handle even the variations in the federal censuses, both for input and output, would be quite a task.

 

In the memo field of the census tag of the "principal", I summarize what I consider the important information and leave off some redundant information. For example, I don't repeat the family name - which is sometimes indicated by a dash or "do". I don't indicate if a "wife" or "daughter" is female (but I will indicate if the census taker got it wrong). I don't repeat the birth place if they are all the same (in English censuses, they give the town and county - I drop the county if the a previous line gave the same town). I will note what I think are errors.

 

I link each person in the household with the appropriate role, as identified by the census taker (and I note in the memo where that is wrong). I make the person who is my closest relative the "Principal", with his or her designated role. I can therefore see, in each person's "person view", where that person was on census night, and maybe what that person was doing (e.g. lodger, servant, student, etc.).

 

As someone has noted, TMG users have a wide variety of ways to handle censuses, both for recording and for reporting. I doubt that any particular tabular facility will satisfy only a small minority of TMG users.

 

Pierce

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