Sentence structure & Role definitions

[Daryl Edmonds 0]

Is it possible to construct sentences that can be used in the same way as a witness tag?

What I’d like to achieve is to be able to, for example, when a parent (or sibling or spouse) dies (or divorces or whatever), I could list, as in a witness tag, those I wanted to be included and when a narrative report was run it would output, automatically, the ages and date of the various surviving family members at the time of the event, without having to add tags to individuals. Hope that doesn’t sound too convoluted.

Here’s an example of the output I’d like to see, three different scenarios in bold:

 

“Charles Thomas Braydon was born near Angaston, South Australia, on 20 Jul 1869, son of Thomas Braydon and Amelia Jasper.

 

When his father died on 19 Sep 1901 in Wilmington, South Australia, he was 32 years old.

 

On 7 Jul 1902 he married Matilda Florence Anderson, daughter of John Christian Anderson and Jane Bakewell, in Residence of W. Bache, Gladstone, South Australia.

 

When his mother died on 20 Dec 1916 he was aged 47, living in Melrose, South Australia.

 

Charles was 66 when his sister, Edna, died at the Orroroo Hospital, aged 76.

 

He died on 2 Jul 1946 in Wilmington, South Australia, aged 76. He was buried in Wilmington Cemetery.”

-------------

….and I would like the same report to apply to all surving family members that I enter as “witnesses” without having to edit their entries.

 

I realise I probably couldn’t expect to have different sentences in the same report although, if I have a different sentence for each principal, it might work.

 

I’m still trying to come to grips with the sentence and roles construction. I’m reasonably confident on simple sentence construction and editing but having trouble with roles. I know how to add new roles but can’t work out where I can put in the role definitions, such as DeAnna’s Widowed, SurvivorAge, WasWith, WasNotWith, etc. (from the Sentence Structures forum). Where do they go? The Help files tells me about adding roles but nothing about definitions, that I could find.

 

Help!

Cheers,

Daryl.

[Terry Reigel 0]

Daryl, first, have you looked at my Roles Tutorial? It should help with the basics of constructing Roles and their Sentences.

 

Is it possible to construct sentences that can be used in the same way as a witness tag?

I don't know what that means, but let's look at your three examples.

When his father died on 19 Sep 1901 in Wilmington, South Australia, he was 32 years old.

You can do this by adding the child as a Witness to the father's death tag. A Witness Sentence like this should work:

 

When his father died [D] , he was [RA:Witness]

 

There are some complications that need to be addressed, however. The "his" and "he" can be changed to "her" and "she" by creating both a male and female sentence for the Role in the Tag Type.

 

I see no automatic way to change "father" to "mother." The best way I see to do this is to create "Father" and "Mother" roles. Then, assign the appropriate one to the child in order to get the right relationship.

 

If there is more than one witness, the age variable [RA:Witness] will list the ages of all of them. To limit it to the age of the specific witness, the best solution seems to be to create a number of roles, and assign a different one to each child. For example, create roles Father1, Father2, etc. The sentence of Father1 would them become:

 

When his father died [D] , he was [RA:Father1]

When his mother died on 20 Dec 1916 he was aged 47, living in Melrose, South Australia.

There is no automatic way to pick up the residence location of a witness from some other tag. The best way to do this is to put the location in the Witness Memo of each witness. The sentence them becomes"

 

When his father died [D] , he was [RA:Witness]

Charles was 66 when his sister, Edna, died at the Orroroo Hospital, aged 76.

Again, enter Charles as a witness in his sister's death tag, with a Role of "Sister1" and a sentence like:

 

[W] was [RA:Sister1] when his sister, [PF], died , [A1]

 

….and I would like the same report to apply to all surving family members that I enter as “witnesses” without having to edit their entries.

If you create the various Roles I described above, and assign them appropriately, you won't have to edit their entries, other than to add the residence address to the Witness Memo in the one case.

[joanmc 0]

Terry, could you cross-reference to this thread in the Sentence Forum? I'm sure others would find the concept and the 'how-to' most helpful.

 

Joan

 

Daryl, first, have you looked at my Roles Tutorial? It should help with the basics of constructing Roles and their Sentences.

I don't know what that means, but let's look at your three examples.

 

You can do this by adding the child as a Witness to the father's death tag. A Witness Sentence like this should work:

 

When his father died [D] <[L]>, he was [RA:Witness]

 

There are some complications that need to be addressed, however. The "his" and "he" can be changed to "her" and "she" by creating both a male and female sentence for the Role in the Tag Type.

 

I see no automatic way to change "father" to "mother." The best way I see to do this is to create "Father" and "Mother" roles. Then, assign the appropriate one to the child in order to get the right relationship.

 

If there is more than one witness, the age variable [RA:Witness] will list the ages of all of them. To limit it to the age of the specific witness, the best solution seems to be to create a number of roles, and assign a different one to each child. For example, create roles Father1, Father2, etc. The sentence of Father1 would them become:

 

When his father died [D] <[L]>, he was [RA:Father1]

 

There is no automatic way to pick up the residence location of a witness from some other tag. The best way to do this is to put the location in the Witness Memo of each witness. The sentence them becomes"

 

When his father died [D] <[L]>, he was [RA:Witness]<, living in [WM]>

 

Again, enter Charles as a witness in his sister's death tag, with a Role of "Sister1" and a sentence like:

 

[W] was [RA:Sister1] when his sister, [PF], died <[L]>, [A1]

 

 

If you create the various Roles I described above, and assign them appropriately, you won't have to edit their entries, other than to add the residence address to the Witness Memo in the one case.

[Terry Reigel 0]

Terry, could you cross-reference to this thread in the Sentence Forum? I'm sure others would find the concept and the 'how-to' most helpful.

Done.

[Daryl Edmonds 0]

Done.

 

Thank you very much, Terry. That has saved a lot of hair pulling and teeth gnashing. I can see it working beautifully once I get it all set up.

 

Thanks again,

 

Cheers,

Daryl

[Terry Reigel 0]

You're welcome, Daryl.