Residence: Fact or Event?

[AlanDrake]

Comparing options available within Reunion's out-of-the-box Add Event and Add Facts, Other… pop-up menus, why does Residence show up under Events but not under Facts?

I'd think they were events but for a single day, yet remain facts even for decades —gee, centuries. I'd be hung to think less than a handful of people could considently verify the DAY a person/family moved, as the act of MOVING would be an Event.

Yes, I can Define Events… or Define Facts…, and put the coding where I wish, but I'm suddently nitpickity about puting a verifyably dated Residency in the right place.

It's amazing how often people seem to change their residencies in NYC. Seems they're moving between every census! And plenty seem to move AT census so they aren't even counted! My favorite remains a paternal greatgrandfather who between the two 1870 NYC enumerations moved his family cross town and when he got to the new local, all of his children who in the first census are shown to have been born in England, with English born parents, suddenly are discovered to have been born in NYC with Manhattan born parents. Now that's tomfoolery. Instant citizenship. The SECOND enumeration was supposed to correct discrepencies in the FIRST!

Thnx

[David G. Kanter]

Comparing options available within Reunion's out-of-the-box Add Event and Add Facts, Other… pop-up menus, why does Residence show up under Events but not under Facts?Can't speak for the developers, but if I were selecting the default fields, I'd want each to appear just once and in the category which is, first, the generally accepted one, and if more than one category could be applicable, in what I'd call the more "robust" category. (I'm suggesting just once as a default as I would consider that as being far easier on the novice user.)

To me, an Event—with its separate date information that can be a parameter, by itself, in a display or query, and which can have a Sort Date assigned to a Custom Date—provides a potentially more robust entry than a Fact or Note (which are just straight text) or a Flag (which is just an applies-or-doesn't-apply condition).

As "Residence" can reasonably be expected to have a Date component—whether a single date or a date range (with a Sort Date)—that one might want to search for using the date-related Find Anything conditions, I'm not surprised to see that the default for it is as an Event. But, as you point out, Reunion doesn't lock you into just its defaults; we're free to define our own data fields.

[genealogist.lily]

Comparing options available within Reunion's out-of-the-box Add Event and Add Facts, Other… pop-up menus, why does Residence show up under Events but not under Facts?

I'd think they were events but for a single day, yet remain facts even for decades —gee, centuries. I'd be hung to think less than a handful of people could considently verify the DAY a person/family moved, as the act of MOVING would be an Event.

Yes, I can Define Events… or Define Facts…, and put the coding where I wish, but I'm suddently nitpickity about puting a verifyably dated Residency in the right place.

Which is exactly why I created "Resides" under "Facts". A place of residence is a "fact" for life - weather you stay there for one day or a lifetime. Also "Fact" fields give me a single long field for typing so that I can "string" many addresses together. e.g. "1915, At home with parents. 1917, 1532 Leslie Street, Switzer NY, etc." On the other hand the "Residence" field in "Events" comes complete with obligatory "Date-Place-Memo" fields - useful for one event only - if I have more than one, I would have to add an entire new field.

But folks no matter how you do it. The wonder of Reunion is that it lets us choose so many styles and variations - easily. I am constantly asked which program I use - because people admire my history reports and think my group sheets are cool. I always tell them "Reunion for Mac" with great glee.

[Ginny Pannier]

For me it works better as an Event. Most of my relatives in the 1880-1920's moved repeatedly between New York, Florida and Cuba. As I have dated letters and postcards with addresses, I use multiple Residences that I place in between the Census Dates. I also use an Ellis Island event, as they came through there on multiple trips back from Cuba, which is different from the place they initially Immigrated to. On Family History Reports you can see the path of migration.

I just love Reunion because each of us can adapt it to what we need.