Describing military service

[rlgleason51 0]

I have ancestors who served in the revolutionary war and the war of 1812. Until now I've used the

mili-begin and mili-end tags to reflect their service and annotating the details (commanders, special accomplishments, etc) in the memo field. Is this how others do this? Is there a better way?

Thanks.

[Sue G 0]

That's the way I've been doing it for years. If necessary I'll change the wording in the sentence to make more sense for a particular person, but not change the default for that sentence.

[Terry Reigel 0]

I find the information I get for various service members is so varied that trying to create a standard Tag Type or Tag Types seems hopeless. So I use a custom Mil-Serv tag, but most of the time I change the sentence to [M] and write the whole story in the Memo, inserting Sentence Variables in the Memo to pick up the Date and place data. I include enlistment and discharge information, units, and information about campaigns involved, etc., when I can find it. I often use several tags to pick up different dates and places.

[Michael Hannah 0]

I have added the Memo variable to both the standard Milit-Beg and Milit-End tag type sentences, but like Terry also created a MilService custom tag type which basically is nothing but the Memo variable. For my examples see the sentence templates for these three tag types in my book.

 

[rlgleason51 0]

Thanks everyone. I will look at the tag sentence suggestions.

[Morbius 0]

I initially used "Mil-Beg" and "Mil-End" tags for entry and exit into service information, and the memo of the more general "Mil-Svc" for all other information, but this didn't quite work. I tend to focus more on war service and the units they served in, so modified these tags to a "Mil-Svc War" and "Mil-Svc Unit", using ​the memo of the more general "Mil-Svc" for the more generalized data. For Example, in "Mil-Svc War" I might enter "Civil War (Confederate Army" and in "Mil-Svc Unit" I would enter "7th Virginia Cavalry, Company K." This give me a great ability to search and sort. In the later instance, I found seven brothers and cousins in the same company of the 7th Virginia that I hadn't realized served together.

[Morbius 0]

One additional comment; Terry is absolutely right, the sources and possible data are just too varied to create a standard for data entry. I have tried several ideas, and didn't find one satisfactory. So, focus on how you intend to use the data. if you just want to record information, a MEMO field entry would probalby work. If you are wanting to sort out every one from a particular war, unit, or service, you will find it easier to a DETAIL kind of entry. In the, I think, as Terry suggests, you will find you need be flexible.

[Terry Reigel 0]

In addition to using the Tags described here to record military service and display it in narratives, I use a separate tag to record Military service for an index page in my website created with Second Site. See http://reigelridge.com/roots/toot-mil.htm

 

This tag collects the data used in the index in an organized way in order to build the index.

[rlgleason51 0]

Thanks. Terry, your info will,help a lot.