Stupid question regarding tag entry

[kevin_b 0]

Whenever you add a tag, there's a "date" field. Is this the date the tag was added, or the date the event occurred? See, stupid question.

 

What made me think of it was the SSN tag. Hmm, date for SSN - date added? Blank? Made me think - should all my Marriage/Divorce tags be changed?

 

[elevator 0]

The way I have understood it, it should always be the date that the even took place. Potentially, all tags can have a date associated with them including tags you would normally not think about dates such as SSN and occupation. However, me for example being an immigrant to the United States didn't get my US SSN inssued until a certain date. In my case the data field would reflect such an issue date. Similarily people may have had many occupations throughout their lifetime and the data field can then be used to specify a date range when the occupation was held.

 

All fields on the tag entry screen should in reality deal with that particular tag. If any of the fields are not applicable to a particular tag, they should; in my opinion, be left blank.

 

Ken V. Nordberg

 

Whenever you add a tag, there's a "date" field. Is this the date the tag was added, or the date the event occurred? See, stupid question.

 

What made me think of it was the SSN tag. Hmm, date for SSN - date added? Blank? Made me think - should all my Marriage/Divorce tags be changed?

 

[kevin_b 0]

Thanks Ken!

 

And might I add I'm the newest paid owner of TMG v6.

 

After trying it out again I quickly realized how robust it is, and also how much it's making me think when entering info, which makes me enter more info that will come in handy! The other software I was using didn't really do that.

[John Cardinal 0]

Kevin,

 

I'll throw my 2 cents in.

 

In general, the date field for TMG event tags is almost always used to record the date of the event being recorded. There may be special circumstances, such as recording information that isn't associated with a dated event, or recording information where the date is unknown. In those cases, you can leave the date blank or there may be other useful ways of using the date field.

 

The date for an SSN should probably be the date the SSN was acquired, if known. When I have a copy of an SSN application, I record the application date and use some of the other event fields to record information from the SSN app. Although the SSN is valid from that point until the person dies, the acquisition of the SSN seems like the single date of importance for that event. I don't think that's absolutely the right answer, it's just the way I think of it.

 

There is an interesting similarity between the Marriage tag and the SSN tag. We call it a "Marriage" date, but it's actually the wedding date. Using terminology from my SSN argument above, we record the date the marriage partner was acquired! If we were actually recording a Marriage date, it would have to be a range.

[kevin_b 0]

Thanks John, I appreciate the reply. Your response is pretty much what I was thinking as well. Sometimes I just need to bounce the ideas in my brain off someone else for clarity.

[elevator 0]

I agree with you. Maybe the Marriage tag should be renamed "Married", indicating a particular point in time when the marriage was established (i.e. through a wedding ceremony, or trip to the courthouse, or whatever). However, the other dates that are interesting in the context of a relationship between two people is really only engagement and divorce. The latter two have their own tags anyway. The only reasonable explanation to me is then that the start of a relationship is signified by an engagement or a marriage tag and the end of a relationship is signified by a divorced date or a death/probate tag for one of the partners involved.

 

Ken.

 

There is an interesting similarity between the Marriage tag and the SSN tag. We call it a "Marriage" date, but it's actually the wedding date. Using terminology from my SSN argument above, we record the date the marriage partner was acquired! If we were actually recording a Marriage date, it would have to be a range.