On 10 Mar 2017 at 10:54, Naomi SMITH BLACK wrote: > Next question. Now that I am starting from scratch...what qualifies as a > Master Source? Ex: 1920 US Federal Census > > I will be using many of these, but for different areas, such as Putnam > County, Ohio and Monroe County, Michigan, etc. > > Would *each* of these be considered a Master Source?
Different people deal with this in different ways. A lot will depend on which sources apply to your data, and how much information you have from each source. For example, if you have a very large number of families from a small area, you may want to make that small area (eg Putnam Country, Ohio) a master source, but if you have family scattered over a wider area, you might want to make the master source the 1920 US Census, and put Putnam County into the details. My own preference is the latter, but I still make exceptions for some things. One reason for my preference is database architecture, which is a bit technical, but still worth considering. Legacy is a relational database, and one of the rules of relational database is to avoid duplication. If you make Putnam County Ohio and Monroe County Michigan your master sources, then you have to enter the 1920 US Census twice, and more if there are other counties. All those entries take up space on your disk. There are 3,141 counties in the United States. If you had 2 people in each in the 1920 Census, that would be 3141 Master Sources and 6282 detail sources. If, however, you lump the entries for the 1920 Census into one master source, that's 3140 master source records. But if your people are distributed over 5 counties, then 5 Master sources might be better. -- Steve Hayes E-mail: [email protected] Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Fax: 086-548-2525 -- LegacyUserGroup mailing list [email protected] To manage your subscription and unsubscribe http://legacyusers.com/mailman/listinfo/legacyusergroup_legacyusers.com Archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
