The need for event-based software

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:11:12 -0500, Haines Brown
<brownh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>A very interesting thread. I hope no one minds if a non-genealogist
>jumps in with questions.
>
>My sense of the distinction of a relation-based and an event based
>structure is clear to me only in the abstract, but not in concrete
>terms. Would someone be willing to offer a simple example of each to
>help make the distinction clearer?

I've given this a different subject line because it is a different thread.


I've long felt a need for event-based software that would take a different
approach to ordinary lineage-linked genealogy software and take a
different
approach. It woudl be useful for family history research rather than pure
genealogy, and for other kind of historical research as well. 

I've even developed a sort of data model, which I've semi-implemented in
creating a database to illustrate it.

Let me try to give a concrete illustration of the difference. 

Say you are writing a biography of a person, and  you want software to
help
you in your research.

In a hypothetical event-based program you would enter people who impinged
on
the life of your subject as you do with genealogy software. Some would be
genealogically related and some not.

The birth event, for example, would have your subject's birth, with
parents
(obviously), but others like midwives, obstetricians and so on also
linked. 

Twenty-one years later there might be a 21st birthday party, and you would
have that as an event, and a description of the event, and then link
people in
your database to the event -- friends and relatives who attended. 

After entering a lot of events in the subject's life, you could create a
chronology of the events, and of the people associated with your subject
at
each stage - parents, friends, teachers, classmates, bosses, and so on. If
you
were doing a biography, you could include in notes on various people their
recollections of the subject, and the subjects recollections of them. 

In this hypothetical program, it should be possibly to im****t family
relations
(via GEDCOM) from lineage-linked software,  but also from address books
etc. 

Such software could be used for other purposes. 

Onme of the things I do research on  is African Independent churches. I
have
three different databases or datasets -- churches, leaders and events. It
would be useful to be able to link them in a relational database, but I
don't
have the skill to design such a database. Also, as software goes obsolete
one
would spend more time on redesigning it than entering and manipulating
data,
so you would never get any reseach done because you would always be
tinkering
with the tools. I once tried to do it with Paradox, but now everyone uses
Access, and it would have to be rewritten from scratch, and I've never
found
books on Access that can tell me what I used to know about Paradox. 

So I lumber along using an old DOS program called Inmagic, which serves my
purpose.

I'm playing with a Windows program called askSam (I also continue to use
the
DOS version) which I use for entering raw genealogical data from different
sources and material for other research projects. These are useful
research
tools, but an event-based relational program would be a useful addition.

-- 
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop
uk