I agree with John about how easily date modifiers get lost. For a start
they don't show in many indexes. So I also put dates in privacy brackets.
However, in Legacy I don't feel the need to put something in the Death
date to trigger that the person has died.
I periodically run the Advanced Set Living Tool - especially before
exporting a Gedcom to upload to Ancestry.
For a Gedcom for Ancestry I also omit Living people altogether. If you
really want the living private, don't show them.
Cathy
Jay Wilpolt wrote:
>
> John
>
> I think we are on the same page....
>
> some thoughts to add.....
>
> /As both of us maintain somewhat public research sites online, I
> decided some time ago that I did not wish to publish dates that I
> could not support by some type of fact. Yet, as a One Namer, I would
> find that my family files would have actually 100s of people with more
> or less the same name.
>
> /Again another reason why I had to start adding some date "qualifiers"
> as my own distant (5th great) paternal families had names like;
> Johan Bernard William Whilpholt
> Bernard Wilhelm Henricis Whilpholt
> Johann Wilhelm Henricus Whilpholt
> Henricus Willhelm Bernard Whilpholt
> Wilhelm Johann Hericus Whilpholt
>
> and often not the exact same name would then be used for their
> marriage or death/
> /
> Or like where 8 families with the same surname all lived close by and
> they all had a Maria Anna born between 1850-1870
>
>
> /I discovered that Legacy has a neat feature that allows you to make a
> date private. For instance when I enter a marriage record for John
> Stedman and Mary Smith that took place in May 1816 and have not (yet)
> discovered them in a census or in other vital records documentation, I
> will estimate when they were born. For John, say 1790. I enter in
> Legacy [[est 1790]] {I tie "est" to the circa date in Legacy}. The
> privacy brackets around the date mean that index view and name list
> will sort the person correctly, but when I export the Gedcom, no date
> will appear for the birth date.
>
> /
> Personal choice not to keep the dates private, since i dont know what
> genealogy software someone else uses, thaht may not properly handle
> all the "Blank" info, whereas I am pretty sure it will handle fields
> with data. /
> /
> /
> I have seen too many cases of people (myself included before I set
> this standard) having a date like you have of bef. 1882 copied down as
> 1882 and then get perpetuated. Now, I try not to be responsible for
> introducing too much bogus information into the literature.
>
> /
> I can not control how well other "copy down" info, If it says bef 1882
> they better copy BEFORE 1882. /
>
> /
> /
> When you enter a private date that would otherwise trigger the person
> as being deceased, the person is set to deceased.
>
> /
> That is a good feature/
> /
> /
> This triggers another rant... :-)
>
> I hate to see trees where persons born 400 years ago are listed as
> living and thus made private. This is often caused by some genealogy
> program or another not having a data model that properly handles when
> an undated person is deceased. Consequently, I set a personal standard
> that anyone whom I believe to be deceased, I will enter the death date
> of "Unknown". Then I do not have to depend on the whim of any
> genealogy program to set the person as deceased.
>
> /
> AGREED AGREED AGREED not to mention some basic validation tests.....
> when I see a parent born in 1880 and their child is born in 1792 I
> know they are not serious about their data/
> /
> /
>
> I have also found that when recording census data, it is helpful, even
> when I do not have a death date, to record a death date as "after
> 1860" if the 1860 census was last that I found him or her recorded. I
> will also make that a between date if, say, I find the person is the
> 1860 census but I learn in the 1880 or 1900 census or some other
> record that the person is deceased: "bet. 1860 and 1880".
>
> I do know this standard sets up the possibility of someone recording
> the after date as just a date. I am likely to make that a private date
> as a result. My concern then is that the deceased person does not show
> a death date ./
>
>
> But as another user stated, the best way is whatever works for YOU......
>
> On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 1:33 PM, John B. Lisle <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> Jay,
>
> We can agree to disagree about your unknown name naming
> conventions, but I did wish to respond to some of your date usage.
>
> As both of us maintain somewhat public research sites online, I
> decided some time ago that I did not wish to publish dates that I
> could not support by some type of fact. Yet, as a One Namer, I
> would find that my family files would have actually 100s of people
> with more or less the same name.
>
> I discovered that Legacy has a neat feature that allows you to
> make a date private. For instance when I enter a marriage record
> for John Stedman and Mary Smith that took place in May 1816 and
> have not (yet) discovered them in a census or in other vital
> records documentation, I will estimate when they were born. For
> John, say 1790. I enter in Legacy [[est 1790]] {I tie "est" to the
> circa date in Legacy}. The privacy brackets around the date mean
> that index view and name list will sort the person correctly, but
> when I export the Gedcom, no date will appear for the birth date.
>
> I have seen too many cases of people (myself included before I set
> this standard) having a date like you have of bef. 1882 copied
> down as 1882 and then get perpetuated. Now, I try not to be
> responsible for introducing too much bogus information into the
> literature.
>
> When you enter a private date that would otherwise trigger the
> person as being deceased, the person is set to deceased.
>
> This triggers another rant... :-)
>
> I hate to see trees where persons born 400 years ago are listed as
> living and thus made private. This is often caused by some
> genealogy program or another not having a data model that properly
> handles when an undated person is deceased. Consequently, I set a
> personal standard that anyone whom I believe to be deceased, I
> will enter the death date of "Unknown". Then I do not have to
> depend on the whim of any genealogy program to set the person as
> deceased.
>
> I have also found that when recording census data, it is helpful,
> even when I do not have a death date, to record a death date as
> "after 1860" if the 1860 census was last that I found him or her
> recorded. I will also make that a between date if, say, I find the
> person is the 1860 census but I learn in the 1880 or 1900 census
> or some other record that the person is deceased: "bet. 1860 and
> 1880".
>
> I do know this standard sets up the possibility of someone
> recording the after date as just a date. I am likely to make that
> a private date as a result. My concern then is that the deceased
> person does not show a death date ...
>
> Since I do not permit Gedcoms to be downloaded from my TNG site, I
> am not as not as worried about this. But it is a concern.
>
> john.
>
> At 03:29 PM 3/27/2015, Jay Wilpolt wrote:
>>
>> Don,
>>
>> I cant answer the question as to why Legacy does the things it
>> does as far as name conventions.....
>>
>> But I have a large database of almost 250,000.
>> The problems come most often because of exchanging gedcoms where
>> importing and exporting data doesnt always end up in the right
>> place causing errors.
>>
>> Wherever I can I place a name and a date to help define the person
>>
>> I use UnknownMÂ and UnknownF for given names and Unknown as a
>> surname
>>
>> You can tell Legacy to exclude specific names on the potential
>> problems list.
>>
>> I also add in usually some kind of date definer.
>>
>> Say as you mentioned as married females parents and siblings.....
>> Let say the lady was born in 1900 and married in 1918.
>>
>> I would add her parents as UnknownM Unknown born Bef 1882 and
>> married Bef 1900 to UnknownF Unknown also born Bef 1882
>> and under the parents add the siblings like Margaret Unknown born
>> 1915 and John Unknown born 1918
>>
>> If you were to leave the default Legacy of just no names but a
>> defacto (unknown and unknown) couple that connected to the
>> Margaret and John siblings... because there are no dates for the
>> parents they would export in any gedcom as LIVING persons.
>>
>> With dates added Legacy has a better chance on not selecting them
>> when searching for duplicates (If I didnt have all these
>> (placeholders) my duplicate search would have over 1,000,000
>> potentials to review....lol)
>>
>>
>> so my general rules of thumb for date estimations are;
>>
>> abt. (about) is used whenever the date is NOT exact OR complete;
>> Dec 2008 is listed as "abt. Dec 2008"
>> aft. (after) is used for birth dates and estimates the birth took
>> place after the marriage of the parents.
>> aft. (after) used in birth dates estimates the birth took place
>> after the parent was 18 years of age.
>> aft. (after) used in marriage dates estimates the couple were
>> married after the eldest spouse was at least 18 years of age.
>> bef. (before) used in marriages dates estimates a couple were
>> married before the date of birth of any children.
>> bef. (before) used in death dates estimates a person died before
>> the age of 100.
>> bet. (between) used in birth dates estimates a person was born
>> between a range of dates when they are not listed on a census and
>> are listed on the next census.
>> bet. (between) used in marriage dates estimates a range of dates
>> from aft 18 years of age of the eldest spouse to some other date
>> information from another source.
>> cir. (circa) used in birth dates estimates a spouses birth date
>> is close to the same year as their spouse and is used only when
>> no other estimated dates can be determined.
>>
>> Yes, there will be people you find that actual date falls outside
>> of these generalizations, (like the 3/10ths of 1 % of persons
>> that live to be over 100 in my datafile) that is an acceptable
>> range for error.
>>
>>
>> Hope this helps
>>
>> Jay
>
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