Using Events

[Kathleen Crittenden]

I'm new to the forum, but not totally new to Reunion. Ten years ago I inherited my father's Reunion database, which contained basic birth, death, and burial EVENTS with no source citations at all, plus lots of miscellaneous data in the NOTES field. Now it's time to get serious about "cleaning house."

In addition to adding source citations, I'm trying to organize the information using EVENTS, but need advice on creating new EVENT fields.

My quandry is with information such as:
- the home burned down
- the person was ordained as a minister in the Baptist church
- the person joined the army and fought in the Civil War
- the child was placed in an orphanage

Should I be creating custom EVENT types for these significant "life events," or keep this type of information within the NOTES field? Using the EVENTS field is appealing because it's easy to sort, easy to read, and easy to cite sources. But are there drawbacks to having many different EVENT types? I'd love to hear of different approaches you more experienced folks use.

Thanks for any advice you're able to offer!

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Using Events

I think you are right: there is a difficult balance to be struck here, and it is a matter of taste. (There is no one correct way to use Reunion.)

There is a distinction between default fields and what one might call 'standard' fields. Default fields appear automatically in Edit Person for each new person added, but don't necessarily show in your Family View. Standard fields (my expression) are those you choose to have showing in Family View (or if you have several views, in the one you most use).

Personally, unless it's just too long, I put everything I can into standard fields: I want to see it. I don't make much use of Add Event, because I'm not going to see that except when I happen to go back into the Events section of Edit Person.

As for 'House burnt down' I would surely want to see that, so it would have to get into a standard field, but I wouldn't make a new event type for it (either default or standard) because in most cases, that would be an empty field taking up space on screen. There's a solution: my standard fields include two note fields, the Misc. Notes that comes with Reunion, and one I added called Dates. This holds all non-default events, arranged in chronological order. I would put the house fire in there.

[theKiwi]

Re: Using Events

Personally, unless it's just too long, I put everything I can into standard fields: I want to see it. I don't make much use of Add Event, because I'm not going to see that except when I happen to go back into the Events section of Edit Person.

You can:
1 - add new events to views so that you do see them
2 - choose the "Smart View" that shows all events that have data in what is effectively a single field on the Family Card view.

To the general question, I would put anything that has a date attached to it as an Event where it can be more easily sourced, and have that source stick with the event in case of transfer by GEDCOM to some other software.

You could add them as Misc Events where they get a GEDCOM construct that is perhaps more likely to survive moving to other software

or

you can add them as new event types and give them a GEDCOM tag starting with a _ which is for user defined tags.

Roger

[David Moody]

Re: Using Events

I'm new to the forum, but not totally new to Reunion. Ten years ago I inherited my father's Reunion database, which contained basic birth, death, and burial EVENTS with no source citations at all, plus lots of miscellaneous data in the NOTES field. Now it's time to get serious about "cleaning house."

In addition to adding source citations, I'm trying to organize the information using EVENTS, but need advice on creating new EVENT fields.

My quandry is with information such as:
- the home burned down
- the person was ordained as a minister in the Baptist church
- the person joined the army and fought in the Civil War
- the child was placed in an orphanage

Should I be creating custom EVENT types for these significant "life events," or keep this type of information within the NOTES field? Using the EVENTS field is appealing because it's easy to sort, easy to read, and easy to cite sources. But are there drawbacks to having many different EVENT types? I'd love to hear of different approaches you more experienced folks use.

Thanks for any advice you're able to offer!

Kathleen:

When Reunion was first released, I was in the same situation as you. I made the decision that I wanted to create personal histories to accompany my genealogy, and so I have always put all facts about each individual (even if they sometimes duplicate an Event Field) into Notes. I insert them in chronological order, sourced whenever possible, and now have extensive personal histories of many ancestors and descendants. I still fill the Event Fields and the only other Field I use is Research so I or persons looking at my web site can see where I need answers. Now I don't have to recreate an individual's history when needed.
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