Thanks to all for your responses. Particularly . . . Jenny and Ron:
That's the great benefit to reading this list. Over the years I've learned about several clever things that users do with Legacy that I hadn't found or thought of and wondered if perhaps there was something along those lines with use of Events. To your point regarding sources *not* tied to Events, after entering probably close to thousands of sources I haven't yet found one that doesn't link to a basic fact like name, birth, death, marriage, without creating a separate event. My grandfather's union ID card, for example, gives his name, dob, address, says he was a member of the Longshoremen's Union and authorized to handle explosives, plus additional tidbits. I've transcribed all of this data under Source Details with the card (an artifact) as the source and attached it to the fields for his name and date of birth. Under your system I could also create Residence and Occupation events, but they'd have the same source information. I can see how the events would convert to a nice biographical narrative but don't have a use for those. Perhaps my non-Event system does suit my purposes after all. Ward: I do exchange reports with other researchers, and they're primarily interested in the bare facts--What the record was, where they can find it, and *exactly* what it said. All of this is in the Source Citation and Source Detail. If I should ever want to develop a biographical sketch for an individual and, as you say, perhaps combine information from multiple sources to make it read more smoothly, then I would write a narrative from scratch and put the source citations in footnotes, endnotes, or a bibliography. I agree that use of Notes can be a problem and should be avoided although I do use Research Notes rather frequently, for example, to record unverified data posted by another researcher. Brett: Your point about using the software as the programmer intended is well taken. I've been singed (just slightly) in the past by over-manipulating Legacy's SourceWriter templates and learned to watch my step there. Also GEDCOM compatibility is a big issue and something I watch carefully and test often. In fact, that's what turned me away from using Events in the first place. I post at RootsWeb and really dislike seeing a long list of Events at the top of the page above details on the spouse, parents, and children. Of course you can choose to not include Events in the GEDCOM, but then there's no point to having them in the first place. It's been a few years since I first discovered that and I'd forgotten all about that downside to using Events. Thanks for reminding me! And again, thanks to everyone for your thoughtful responses. It's been an interesting discussion. Kirsten -----Original Message----- From: Jenny M Benson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 3:17 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Uses For Events? Ron Ferguson wrote >If you have a way of doing something which suits you and is future >proof, ie. will suit you should you wish to publish reports, write a >book, publish a website etc. then fine, no one would wish to dictate >how you should do this. One of the great features of Legacy, as I and many others have said before, is that you can use it in whatever way suits you. >However your question was > >"It appears the main uses for Event entries would be to produce (1) >narrative reports and, (2) timelines, but I'd never want a narrative >produced directly from Legacy, and have a different method for creating >timelines when they're needed. What are some of the other compelling >reasons for listing Events for individuals?" If you, Kirsten, cannot think of any compelling reasons for you to have Events, then there probably aren't any. What is compelling for most of us obviously isn't for you. > >What both Jenny and I will agree on is that they are not the same >thing, and that is the compelling reason for having both. Neither makes >any sense if it stands on its own. Absolutely. In fact, I am having difficulty in understanding how one would record a Source without having an Event to attach it to. Unless one made extensive use of Notes, but it in that case the Note field would essentially be an Event field. If some document records that an ancestor was a Colonel in the XYZ Regiment and fought at the battle of ABC where would you attach that Source if not to an Event named something like "Military" or maybe "Occupation"? -- Jenny M Benson Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
