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Archiver > TMG > 2002-10 > 1035466780


From: "Gilbert Blankenship" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] OT: Date of death
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 09:40:43 -0400
In-Reply-To: <3DB74472.4E1D7EF6@nc.rr.com>


DISCLAIMER:
In response I first have to say that there are many ways to do things,
this e-mail is not intended as the only way - is not meant to start
flame wars - but only an indication of how I use the software. (grin)

Actually, I believe that this depends upon two things

1) Where you are recording the TIME of death
2) Whether or not you use the Surety levels properly

Let's step back a bit from time and use date specifically. Suppose you
saw grandma die just before midnight say 31 December 2001 and the death
certificate records time of death just after midnight 1 January 2002. I
chose this scenario because it not only forces a difference in the Day
but also the Month and the Year - even though the event only occurred
hours apart. This will help to explain the topic as a whole.

First, when creating your source (citation) for non-publication items,
in this case an interview (your memory) and a death certificate always
go to the Supplemental tab and enter the entire text extract of your
source.

With your citations created you now create the event tags. In your case
there are (primarily) two methods available. Which method you use is up
to you.

1) Two different death entries specifying different dates each with a
single resource. For the 31 December 2001 your Surety level for the
date would have to be 2 or less because it comes from your memory and
should probably be only a 1. Memories are faulty and this is why the
separation between primary sources and secondary sources and the 4
levels of surety.

(NOTE:
It is important to understand Surety Levels and Source Types
The definitions I use for Surety levels are:
- The source does not support this citation or the information is
disproved
0 A guess
1 Less reliable secondary source
2 A reliable secondary source
3 A primary source, close to the time of event

The definitions I use for Source types are:
Primary is an original government or church document
Secondary are non-government or non-religious documents recorded within
a reasonable time of the event such as obituaries, family bible entries
Less reliable secondary are all others - published family histories,
memories etc)

Your citation for this entry would be yourself say - as an interview.
The death tag for 1 January would be cited with a Primary source
(official document) with a surety level of 3 automatically (primary
source recorded at or close to the time of the even). In this case -
the 1 January event would by definition of Source Type and Surety level
take precedence.

2) A single death tag entry with the date of your choice. Since you
witnessed the death you could select 31 December 2001. This record
would have two citations one being your eye witness account with a low
surety level which supports the date of event (Surety 1 or 2) and
another citation entry for the death certification with a negative
Surety Level (-). Why is the surety level of the death certificate so
low you ask? It's not. Under the - Surety definition is the statement
"this information has been disproved". You are stating, that even
though your memory has a low Surety level you are disproving the death
certificate as an official document. Now of course there are many
arguments about this. You could state that all death certificates
record death after-the-fact for medical purposes and that most people
have actually been dead for some time. However it's just one way to
have your memory (with a low surety) override a primary document
(normally a high surety).

Now, in either case, when you are adding the citations to the event and
you have the citation window open be sure to make whatever analysis you
need in the memo field and set the memo surety to the appropriate level.

When your record prints out, your analysis will be printed as part of
the citation for this person and not within the standard event sentence
structure.

Here is an example. My grandfather died shortly before I was married.
My memory fails regarding the specific date. For the purpose of this
e-mail I added a date date of circa 1988 with a citation of my marriage
certificate and my own memory. For the death event, in the death memo
field I typed
Event memo field
And in the citation memo field for the event I typed
Citation memo field

Here is the resulting text from the death event in the Individual
Narrative Preview with Sources:

"... He died circa 1988 (Penny Wozniak marriage, 14 April 1988, Unknown
repository, unknown address, unknown manuscript info Citation memo
field.) (Interview with an unknown informant (unknown informant
address). Unknown repository (unknown repository address), citation
memo field)"

The resulting text from the death event in the Individual Narrative
Preview (without sources)

"... He died circa 1988."

Had I gone into more detail here I could have put in the citation memo
field that he died prior to my marriage. The marriage citation (surety
level -) does not support the citation but it does provide a timeframe
for the event when combined with my personal interview (surety level 1).






-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Campbell [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 8:53 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [TMG] OT: Date of death

I believe that I read on this list that Bob Velke is supposed to have
said something like "TMG is used to record evidence". If you saw
grandma die at 5:00 am yet the death certificate said 10:00 am wouldn't
you just have two death tags for grandma? The source of one (the
primary) would be your personal observation and the source of the second
would be the death certificate.

Jim Campbell


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