TINY TAFEL INFORMATION compiled by Steve Hayes, with acknowledgements to Christopher Long EXACTLY WHAT IS A TINY TAFEL? A Tiny Tafel is a condensed list of the surnames you aere researching, with information about the place and date of each line where it begins and ends, and an indication of your level of interest in that line. In a Tiny Tafel, an entry is made for each family line that is in the Ahnentafel Chart. It does not contain any personal details of those ancestors. Instead, it lists basic data about each family line - more specifically, a surname and then the years and places of the earliest and most recent persons. When looking for someone who's research might cross with your own, it would not be immediately helpful to be told all of the specifics of a list of per- sons. But, if you were told "I have research on the COLLINS family from 1700 to 1986, starting in England and ending in South Carolina" you would be able to immediately decide if there is a possibility of your lines crossing. This is the idea behind a Tiny Tafel. Tiny Tafels have a rigid format. This allows computers to more easily read and compare them. If you deviate from that format, it is very likely that your Tiny Tafel will not be able to be processed by matching programs such as the Tiny Tafel Editor and the Tafel Matching System. It is possible to create a Tiny Tafel using a word processor or a text editor (such as Windows notepad), but you need to know the specification and follow it exactly. This is why a special TT editor is useful, as it automatically checks for the correct format. If anyone would like a copy of the Tiny Tafel Editor, a shareware program by Chris Long, please e-mail me at [email protected] and ask for it. I will send it by e-mail attachment as a .zip file. WHY MAKE A TINY TAFEL? Think of it as a snapshot of what you are researching. At a glance, a person can immediately see your research and be able to tell you if any of your lines look like they might meet with their own. If they look promising, you both may benefit from sharing your research. Plus, there are ways to automate the process of comparing Tiny Tafels. The TT Editor program can be set to run fuzzy or exact matches on names,and places. SAMPLE OF A TINY TAFEL =========== SAMPLE TT BEGINS ============================= N Ronald Hickman A Villa Devereux A Route Orange A St Brelade A Jersey JE3 8GP A British Channel Islands T (0534) 43822 F Family History System (C:FAMILY .NAM) R No modem, but will answer snail mail R queries Z 40 Tiny Tafel Editor v2.2 --- This TT may be freely distributed! A350 1760*1760*ADAME\Cape Colony/Cape Colony A536 1860:1982:ANDERTON\Natal, South Africa/Natal, South Africa B340 1930.1951:BATAILLE\Natal, south Africa/UNKNOWN B552 1770*1953*BENINGFIELD\London, England/Durban, South Africa B552 1802 1802 BENNINGFIELD\Whitechapel, London/Whitechapel, London B632 1782*1800 BREEDSCHOE\Cape Town/Cape Town B632 1755*1755*BREITSCHUH\Eisleben, Germany/Eisleben, Germany B650 1940.1985:BRIAN\Chelmsford, Essex, ENG/Chelsmford, Essex, ENG B652 1829.1955:BRINK\Cape Town, South Africa/South Africa B655 1822*1866*BUEHRMANN\Amsterdam, Nederland/Ermelo, Transvaal B652 1940.1940:BURMEISTER\South Africa/South Africa B622 1881.1881:BURROUGHES\Holt, Norfolk, England/Holt, Norfolk, England B622 1919.1919:BURROUGHS\Pretoria, South Africa/Pretoria, South Africa C500 1942.1942:CAINE\Dundee, South Africa/Dundee, South Africa C516 1935.1967:CHAMBERLAIN\Natal, South Africa/UNKNOWN C430 1849.1882:CHILD\UK/UK D000 1883.1965:DEE\London, England/Durban, South Africa D146 1965.1973:DEVILLIERS\Pretoria, South Africa/Pretoria, South Africa D623 1916.1948:DURSTON\Plymouth, Devon, ENG/Durban, South Africa E452 1773*1773:ELLINGTON\London, England/London, England F450 1780*1825*FLAMME\Twiste, Hesse-Nassau/Cape Town, South Africa G431 1931*1931 GOLDBOLD\Umtata, South Africa/Umtata, South Africa H200 1868.1943:HAWKE\Natal, South Africa/Natal, South Africa H255 1797*1966*HICKMAN\England/Nazeing, Essex, ENG L162 1930.1930:LIVERSAGE\Natal, South Africa/Natal, South Africa L000 1903.1974:LOWE\Pietermaritzburg/Pietermaritzburg, South Africa L320 1910.1954:LUDIK\South Africa/South Africa M624 1907.1948:MARSHALL\Port Elizabeth, South Africa/South Africa M260 1935.1958:MCRAE\Natal, South Africa/UNKNOWN M460 1868.1961:MILLER\Kwelegha, E Cape, South Africa/Durban, South Africa N345 1826*1900:NEETHLING\Worcester, Cape Colony/UNKNOWN P456 1914.1945*PALMER\Pretoria, South Africa/Pretoria, South Africa P560 1888.1888.PIENAAR\South Africa/South Africa R534 1964.1970:RANDALL\Pietermaritzburg, South Africa/Johannesburg, RSA S363 1861.1894.STEWARD\South Africa/South Africa T250 1896.1926:THESEN\Knysna, south Africa/Knysna, RSA V536 1943.1946:VANDERPOEL\South Africa/South Africa V526 1900.1963:VONSORGENFREI\South Africa/South Africa W425 1905.1963:WILSON-YELVERTON\Natal, RSA/Natal, South Africa W623 1803.1803.WRIGHT\London, England/London, England W 01 Nov 1995 ============ SAMPLE TT ENDS =================================== Some notes on the structure: N Ronald Hickman <-- Name of person A Villa Devereux <-- Snail mail address A Route Orange A St Brelade A Jersey JE3 8GP A British Channel Islands T (0534) 43822 <-- phone number F Family History System (C:FAMILY .NAM) <-- genealogy software used R No modem, but will answer snail mail R queries S <-- for e-mail addresses etc Z 40 Tiny Tafel Editor v2.2 --- This TT may be freely distributed! Note that each of these "header" lines is preceded by a field letter: N for name, A for address, T for phone, S for electronic mail service (BBS, CompuServe, E-mail address etc). The last header field, Z, shows that it is the end of the header, and gives the number of lines that follow, and, optionally, the software used to edit the Tiny Tafel. Then follow the lines of the Tafel proper: D000 1883.1965:DEE\London, England/Durban, South Africa D146 1965.1973:DEVILLIERS\Pretoria, South Africa/Pretoria, South Africa D623 1916.1948:DURSTON\Plymouth, Devon, ENG/Durban, South Africa E452 1773*1773:ELLINGTON\London, England/London, England The first four characters are the SOUNEX code of the surname. Space Earliest date of Birth Interest level (* = high, : = moderate; . = low, blank = none) Latest date of birth Interest level Surname Earliest place of birth, preceded by \ Latest place of birth, preceded by / The interest level following the earliest year is usually taken as the interest in ANCESTORS of that surname. The interest level following the latest date of birth is usually taken as the interest level in DESCENDANTS of that surname. HINTS ON DRAWING UP A TINY TAFEL When you draw up your Tiny Tafel(s), here are some things to bear in mind: 1. Include the date If your genealogy program generates a Tiny Tafel, many dates may be left blank or be shown as 0000. Edit them to give a rough guess for the earliest and latest year of birth. A blank date will not help the matching system. A guess could at least get the century right. MOST MATCHING SYSTEMS IGNORE ENTRIES WITH NO DATES! 2. Include the place Many Tiny Tafels have a blank or "unknown" for the place field. This is of little use to other researchers. If you don't know anything else about the place, at least put the country. If your family travelled to many places, you may put in several surname lines to indicate some of the places. The dates should then relate to the family's association with those places. If a family emigrated from England to South Africa, for example, in the "South Africa" line you would put the date of the first and last members born there, not the date of the earliest ancestor born in England. DON'T FORGET THE COUNTRY! This seems to be a common failing with people in the USA who have compiled Tiny Tafels! One of the weaknesses of the Tiny Tafel system has been the lack of a thesaurus for place names. I suggest a good way of working around it is to use the abbreviations found in the Genealogical Research Directory, which are fairly widely known and used. For countries use USA (not U.S.A.), ENG for Eng- land, CAN for Canada, RSA for South Africa, WLS for Wales, SCT for Scotland, GER for Germany, BEL for Belgium, FRA for France, AUS for Australia, NZ for New Zealand, and so on. 3. Include family lines you have data on, but are not researching If you have information in your records on families that you are not researching, include them in your TT anyway, but indicate only interest in descendants, not ancestors. This will enable other researchers in those families to contact you. 4. Be careful what e-mail address you use If you post a Tiny Tafel on newsgroups, remember that spammers harvest addresses from newsgroups. It can be useful to get a webmail address (such as Hotmail) where spam can be automatically deleted. 5. You can use different Tiny Tafels for different purposes While it is good to have a comprehensive Tiny Tafel for matching purposes, if you want to post it in newsgroups, mailing lists etc, it is often better to create a smaller one for that purpose -- if a list, for example, deals with a single English county or US state, make a shorter list with just the names that have connections with that place for posting there. Above information compiled by Steve Hayes with acknowledgements to Chris Long E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7783/tafel.htm http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/famhist2.htm