f/fgeorge wrote: > On Sun, 29 May 2011 16:37:39 +0100, Ian Goddard > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> singhals wrote: >>> WHY would I want to keep them separate once I've decided they're the >>> same person? My bc, my mc, and my son's bc all refer to ME as ME; what >>> would be the POINT of keeping ME in there 3 times? >> This is the crux of the problem. Your certs all have a /name/ on them. >> Those or just that, names. The names are not /you/. They point to >> you but they are an entirely different type of entity (or object or >> thing or whatever term you wish to use) in reality and therefore really >> should be represented by different types of entity in a database. >> >> So you don't have /you/ in there three times, you have /you/ in there >> once, each of the /names/ from the three certs in there once each and >> three /links/ between the names and you. >> >> Now you might think this is overkill because the names are all the same >> (assuming the name on your son's bc is your maiden name because if not >> you have two variants there already). But if so this is just one >> possibility. At the other extreme I have an ancestor whose surname was, >> in the current dominant spelling hereabouts, Dearnley but in the past >> varied quite a bit and whose first name was rendered so variably that I >> have no idea what it was supposed to be as it goes from Hammond to Amon >> and most points in between. So it makes a lot of sense to have a single >> point where you can standardise the name and link all the variants to >> it. It also makes a lot of sense to be able to attach some sort of >> epithet to disambiguate people of the same name such as my run of 4 >> William Goddards. > > The program TMG lets you put in variant spellings of a name in ONE > record but does not, I don't think, let you then search on them. So in > essence you have to chose one or show the tree or ancestry chart of > someone if you forget hte name. Or in the worst case it is easy to > end up with the same person several times because each time you find > them the info is slightly different and you can't find that they ARE > in fact already in there. Now you CAN put thomas/tomas/tom all on one > line so when you search on thomas you will see the variants, but I > have not found out how to search on tomas and then see the guy. Gramps also does that. So, I'm sure, do many others. But it's the wrong way round. This model attaches alternative names to people. So you have: 1. Events -> Person -> Names in records of event Compare it with: 2. Events -> Names in records of events -> Links -> Person Now, tell, me, which of those actually follows the sequence in which you work things out? And how do you deal with: John, son of William Goddard bapt 30 Jun 1753 John, son of Jonathan Goddard bapt 16 Sep 1753 John Goddard, aged 61 buried 24 Dec 1814 Clearly the John in the burial (and various other records) could be either of the first two. It took me years to gather various bits of circumstantial evidence which, taken together, helped me decide which. In the interim there is no S/W that I know of which would allow me to record that I had an adult which could with 50/50 probability be either of two infants because what's there follows alternative 1 which assumes I will know who's who & merge the John of one of the baptisms with the John of the burial with no error - because picking apart erroneous merges is a complete pain. -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk