How to enter a birth record?

[Emy 0]

I have just started using TMG and would like to see if I understand how a document, such as a birth certificate, should be entered. I can see how one could enter this sort of information in more than one way and I would like to be consistent from the start.

 

Is each individual birth certificate a source? If so, what goes into the citation detail field?

 

There is only one date field. How do I state that the child was born on a given date, but the record was filed a few days later, and the certified document was issued much later? If the certificate has a stamped number, a book number, and a page number, do I put all of these into the number field?

 

Is there an easier way to link one citation to several events (child's date and place of birth, mother, father, mother's place of birth, father's place of birth, names of child and parents, etc.) other than adding a new citation for each event, selecting the source, and using F3 to fill in the detail, memo and reference fields one at a time?

 

 

Thanks!

[Terry Reigel 0]

Is each individual birth certificate a source?  If so, what goes into the citation detail field?

That's the way the default source templates are designed. Using it that way allows the child's name to appear at the beginning of the footnote, which is the suggested style in Ms. Mills' book, which is the basis on which the templates are designed. Used this way, there may be nothing needed in the Citation Detail. However, when I have several sources for an event, and they do not match perfectly, I show in the CD what that source said to support this tag. For example, for a birth tag a citation to a census would say "shows age 13 and state" while a citation to a birth certificate would say "shows date, address, city and state."

 

Some users don't like all the sources that result from making each certificate and individual source. So them make the source more generic, and put more details in the CD. They might, for example make one source for all certificates issued in one county or state, or just one for all of them. Note that this requires considerable modification to the standard templates, since they expect the child's name to appear in the source definition itself. It also means that you can't get the elements in the order shown in the style guides, unless you use the more advanced technique of "split CDs" - see the article on Customizing Sources on my website for details - link shown below.

There is only one date field.  How do I state that the child was born on a given date, but the record was filed a few days later, and the certified document was issued much later?   If the certificate has a stamped number, a book number, and a page number, do I put all of these into the number field?

In my view the date in the source definition should be the date the certificate was issued, or the date the original record was filed. However, looking at Mills' examples, it's not clear which was intended.

Is there an easier way to link one citation to several events (child's date and place of birth, mother, father, mother's place of birth, father's place of birth, names of child and parents, etc.) other than adding a new citation for each event, selecting the source, and using F3 to fill in the detail, memo and reference fields one at a time?

Citations are linked to events, as you note, and thus would be added to each event that you intend to use that source to support. F3 when used in either the source number or CD field will recall both of them. If you use the memo and reference fields, they are recalled separately by F3.