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From: Joan Lowrey <>
Subject: Re: Books from Genealogy Programs
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1998 22:21:14 -0800


>John Smith was born 23 March 1721/2 in Windsor, Hartford County,
>Connecticut. He died before 8 November 1776 in Windsor, Hartford County,
>Connecticut . He married 23 June 1744, in Windsor, Hartford County,
>Connecticut, Jane Doe.

I agree that this is not what we want. One thing you can do is
search-&-replace; in the above example, search for "Windsor, Hartford
County, Connecticut" and replace it with "Windsor". After the first
occurance, you can do "Replace All." But I prefer to repeat the full place
text with each new person, or each new main person, so the reader doesn't
have to search back to far to find out where Windsor was.

You have to be careful with this, of course, if the city was in different
counties at different times. I have "Scranton, Luzerne County,
Pennsylvania,' and "Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania," for
example. What is on the top of my "Wish List" is for someone to create a
list of all the county changes by *full date*, not just year, so we'll be
able to accurately place an event which occurred in the year the change
took place. If anyone has seen such a list, please let me know.

I always just plan on extensive editing. I consider the book-generating
program a tool that gathers the information, organizes it in a numbering
system, and indexes the basic facts. With all that done, I then clean it
up, improve on the arrangement and writing style, add cross references
(such as "See Allied Family: GREEN"), historical information, etc.

My chief complaint about the Companion is that it doesn't use periods after
the roman numerals, and has them left tabbed. I haven't seen any other
program do this, nor does the NEHG Register or NGS Quarterly format. For
this reason, I don't recommend using the Companion to generate the book
format. (I have sent these comments to PAF Support twice, but it never gets
changed.)

According to the Chicago Manual of Style (14th Ed., 5.9), "Use a period
without parentheses after numerals or letters used to enumerate items in a
vertical list," and (8.76) under Outline Style, "The numerals are aligned
on the periods that follow them," and (8.79) "...Note that roman numerals
are aligned on the following periods..."

All the examples in Joan Ferris Curran's "Numbering Your Genealogy" booklet
(NGS, 1992) show roman numerals with periods and right tabbed.

Curran shows NGSQ format with no period after Arabic numbers on pages 6 and
9, and with a period after Arabic numbers on page 11. NGSQ does not use
periods with Arabic numbers, so page 11 is incorrect. Curran shows these
Arabic numbers left tabbed on page 6. The NGS Quarterly, 81:1 (March
1993):13 shows them right tabbed.

Curran does not show an example of NEHG Register format with both single
and double digit Arabic numerals so that cannot be compared. The NEHG
Register, 25(January 1871):23 has Arabic numbers right (decimal) tabbed and
Roman numerals left tabbed (not on the period). This creates an even column
of space between the two numbers throughout. However, the format must have
changed over the years, because in 145 (April 1991):132,134, Arabic numbers
are left tabbed and Roman numerals are right tabbed on the period. Of
course, tabs have to be set according to the length of the numbers/numerals
in each column to assure space between them.

Despite Chicago's position that Arabic numbers should have a period and be
aligned on that period in lists, I personally like the NGSQ format, as it
keeps the left edge of the Arabic numbers even. They therefore cannot have
periods, or the periods will not be vertically aligned as the numbers
increase.

Joan Lowrey

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