Question for Terry Reigel

[MMj 0]

Hi Terry

 

I've been playing with census tags for the past few days, and read your article titled "Census Tag - Expanded" with great interest. I have created a few new tags for different census years using your guidelines, and have found them to be a very powerful but flexible tool. Most census scenarios I have been able to deal with by just playing around until I get it right. But there is one thing I haven't been able to figure out yet, and I'm hoping you might be able to enlighten me.

 

When I have 2 principals in the census tag, those being a man and his wife, where do I place information that should only apply to one or the other of the principals. For example, in one case the husband is listed on the 1930 census as a merchant with his own grocery store. I would like to include that information in printouts about the husband, without it showing up on the printouts for the wife also. In the case of witnesses, that causes me no problem, because I can control their text individually through the witness memo fields. But for the principals, pretty much whatever I print for one is also printing for the other, because their information is coming from the memo field on the census tag itself.

 

What am I not seeing here?

 

Thanks

Mike

Edited September 26, 2006 by MMj

[Terry Reigel 0]

I'd put that in an Occupation tag, not in the census tag.

 

But, if you want to put that information, or any other, in the Census tag, there are a couple of options.

 

If it's only a rare event, I'd edit the "Local Sentence" in the tag. There is a separate sentence for each principal, so you can either remove the [M] variable for the wife, or use a segmented Memo and add the [M2] variable to the huband.

 

You cannot create separate Global Sentences (that is, in the tag type) for P1 and P2, but you can for male and female. So if you expect to need this more than occasionally, you could add [M2] to one of them and [M3] to the other.

[MMj 0]

Hi Terry

Thanks for the response. I agree in general about the occupation from the census belonging in an occupation, but once in a while, especially when there are just a few odd bits of extra data in the census record, it seems cleaner to place it all inside of the single tag. I gave your suggestion about using [M2] and [M3] a quick tryout, and that readily accomplishes what I had in mind. Thanks so much for the help. This wonderful community that we have here is one of the many things that places TMG way beyond it's competition.

 

Mike D.

[jeffpiper 0]

Hi Terry

Thanks for the response. I agree in general about the occupation from the census belonging in an occupation, but once in a while, especially when there are just a few odd bits of extra data in the census record, it seems cleaner to place it all inside of the single tag. I gave your suggestion about using [M2] and [M3] a quick tryout, and that readily accomplishes what I had in mind. Thanks so much for the help. This wonderful community that we have here is one of the many things that places TMG way beyond it's competition.

 

Mike D.

Whilst utilising the Memo field and also the witness memo fields, i only ever have one Principal which is Head of Household (UK Census records) and a wife would be one of the witnesses with that role.

Split memos then accomplish the sentence structure required.

[Terry Reigel 0]

Whilst utilising the Memo field and also the witness memo fields, i only ever have one Principal which is Head of Household (UK Census records) and a wife would be one of the witnesses with that role.

Jeff, the problem I have with entering the spouse as a witness is that then the census tags show up twice for every married couple in Journal reports.

[MMj 0]

I have been enjoying this line of discussion this morning, most especially since I am going to be working with census records for some time to come.

 

My work this morning has brought up yet another question about how best to enter census information within the framework of Terry's expanded census tag.

 

I have many families where the combined children are the product of more than two spouses. Most commonly, a widowed spouse with children who has remarried and then had more children by the second spouse. In some cases I have spouses who have been widowed twice, have children by both marriages, and then remarry a third time and have more children. I have at least one family where a widowed man with children married a widowed woman with children and then they had yet more children.

 

My question is how to set up my principal and rolls so everything fits right and prints right when the children living in the household were the product of multiple relationships.

 

Thanks

Mike D.

[Shaundm 0]

I have been enjoying this line of discussion this morning, most especially since I am going to be working with census records for some time to come.

 

me too

[Terry Reigel 0]

I have many families where the combined children are the product of more than two spouses. Most commonly, a widowed spouse with children who has remarried and then had more children by the second spouse. In some cases I have spouses who have been widowed twice, have children by both marriages, and then remarry a third time and have more children. I have at least one family where a widowed man with children married a widowed woman with children and then they had yet more children.

 

My question is how to set up my principal and rolls so everything fits right and prints right when the children living in the household were the product of multiple relationships.

These sorts of real-life cases are why I don't think it's reasonable to try to build predefined roles to capture all the different kinds of relationships that one finds in actual records. There are so many possibilities that it requires an endless number of roles if you try, and it's nearly impossible to get every combination to produce acceptable text. That's why I recommend creating roles for only the most common situations, and then dealing with the others in the individual tag.

 

To repeat what's on my website, my recommended sentence for the male principal is:

[P] <|and [PO]> appeared on the 1880 Federal Census of< [LCI],>< [LCN],> [LS]<, at [LD]><, enumerated [D]><, [M]>. <Their children [RG:with Parents] were listed as living with them><His children [RG:with Father] were listed as living with him><, [M2]>

In a case like described above, the children of the current "heads of household" are given the role "with Parents." So, they are automatically included in the parents' narrative.

 

I would assign "his children" and/or "her children" the Roles "Witness," "Other," or "Other2." Then, in the second memo segment, I'd enter something like this:

 

"as were his children by a prior marriage, [R:Other], and her children by her prior marriage, [R:Other2]"

 

The output would then be:

 

"John Smith and Mary Jones appeared on the 1880 Federal Census of Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois, at 123 Lakeshore, enumerated 9 Sep 1880. Their children, Tom and Sue were listed as living with him, as here his children by a prior marriage, Billy and Sarah Smith, and her children by her prior marriage, Jane and Marshall Greene."

 

You could of course describe "his" and "her" children in any useful way, for example "his youngest sons" or "her unmarried daughters" or whatever.

 

If they didn't have any children together, I'd either put the others in M1, or modify the sentence locally. For example, I've sometimes used the roles "with Father" or "with Mother" for the separate children, and edited the parent's sentence locally to make it read correctly.

 

Moving now to the sentences for the children. My sentence for the roles of "Witness," "Other," and "Other2" are:

 

[W] appeared on the 1880 Federal Census of< [LCI],>< [LCN],> [LS], in the household of [P] <and [PO]><, [WM]><[M0]>

 

So if you assign these roles to the children of the prior marriages, you could enter in the Witness Memo:

 

"his father and stepmother"

 

which would produce:

 

"Billy Smith appeared on the 1880 Federal Census of Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois, at 123 Lakeshore, in the household of John Smith and Mary Jones, his father and stepmother."

 

Or, you could enter in the memo this if you like it better:

 

"his father and his second wife"

 

Or, you could edit the witness sentence to but the relationships in the sentence:

 

"[W] appeared on the 1880 Federal Census of [LS], in the household of his father, [P] "

 

Hope this provides some ideas - there are lots of ways, depending on exactly how you want the output to read.

[MMj 0]

Thanks for all of the suggestions, Terry. Using that structure should work quite well for me. I had fairly well settled on the tag structure as you have it defined on your tips page, but for some reason I just couldn't make the scenario of children by multiple marriages work out. I have also tried some of the more complex approaches, but quickly found that they get endlessly bogged down by the innumerable relationship possibiilties with family members.

 

But all of this looks so easy, when I see your written examples...

 

So how come I feel like I'm beating my head against the floor when I work with the sentence structures on my own?

 

Thanks again

Mike

[Terry Reigel 0]

You're welcome, Mike.

 

Keep at it - practice seems to help.

 

Terry

[jeffpiper 0]

Jeff, the problem I have with entering the spouse as a witness is that then the census tags show up twice for every married couple in Journal reports.

Terry,

I don't see the tag appearing twice in the Journal report. Where?

[Terry Reigel 0]

Jeff,

 

In an Ancestory Journal it appears for each spouse no matter whether you enter the spouse as Principal or Witness.

 

In a Descendant Journal (when you turn on Spouse events) joint tags appear only once when the spouses are both entered as Principals. But if you enter either or both of them as Witnesses, the tag appears for each of them. I suppose this is good if you want it to say something different for each of them. But if the output is the same for both (as it is for my usage) having it appear for each seems repetitive.

[jeffpiper 0]

Jeff,

 

In an Ancestory Journal it appears for each spouse no matter whether you enter the spouse as Principal or Witness.

 

In a Descendant Journal (when you turn on Spouse events) joint tags appear only once when the spouses are both entered as Principals. But if you enter either or both of them as Witnesses, the tag appears for each of them. I suppose this is good if you want it to say something different for each of them. But if the output is the same for both (as it is for my usage) having it appear for each seems repetitive.

Thanks Terry,

Found that in the myriad of options. My census sentences are different (to an extent) so are not completely repetitive.

[Terry Reigel 0]

You're welcome, Jeff.

 

Terry

[Davenato 0]

Hi Terry,

 

I just started my second family group and I noticed that the US Census tags (for each census year) was missing and only the generic tag for "census" was left. Can you help me figure out the preferences that will get the ten-year census tags back?

 

Linda

[Terry Reigel 0]

Linda, what do you mean by "...just started my second family group"? Does this mean you created a new Project? or you added a second group to an existing Project? I think understanding this is the key to knowing what happened.

[Davenato 0]

Hi Terry,

 

I just started my second family group and I noticed that the US Census tags (for each census year) was missing and only the generic tag for "census" was left. Can you help me figure out the preferences that will get the ten-year census tags back?

 

Linda

 

 

It is a new project. Sorry. The first project was done primarily for southern Italy research, but when I added the American relatives, it always gave me the option to include census information for each of the 10-year census. This new project only lists the "census". Sorry for the poorly phrased question.

 

Linda

[Terry Reigel 0]

Thanks, Linda. I suspected as much.

 

This is one of the reasons I strongly recommend most users put all their data in a single Project, and within that Project, in a single Data Set. All the custom Tag Types, Source Types, Styles, etc. that you create are specific to a single Data Set.

 

When you create a new Data Set in an existing Project you have an option to copy your existing customizations, but that doesn't help when you make later changes - they need to be make to each Data Set in which you want them to appear. There is no simple way to copy these customizations to a new Project.

 

I suggest you reconsider whether you really want this data in a separate Project. You might want to read my article on Projects and Data Sets if you are not familiar with the subject.

 

When you decide, I can give you direction to either merge you work into a single project, or copy the tag types if that is your decision.

[Davenato 0]

Thanks, Linda. I suspected as much.

 

This is one of the reasons I strongly recommend most users put all their data in a single Project, and within that Project, in a single Data Set. All the custom Tag Types, Source Types, Styles, etc. that you create are specific to a single Data Set.

 

When you create a new Data Set in an existing Project you have an option to copy your existing customizations, but that doesn't help when you make later changes - they need to be make to each Data Set in which you want them to appear. There is no simple way to copy these customizations to a new Project.

 

I suggest you reconsider whether you really want this data in a separate Project. You might want to read my article on Projects and Data Sets if you are not familiar with the subject.

 

When you decide, I can give you direction to either merge you work into a single project, or copy the tag types if that is your decision.

 

Thank you. I'll read the article and let you know.