* Travel

[Johnwrosser]

I feel sure I've asked about this before but can't see the reply. I need a fact for Travel as my people 'travelled' from one country to another on certain dates but without emigrating. Is there a fact for this or can one be made up please?

[ColeValleyGirl]

There is no way to create a custom fact that has a To: and From: place; unfortunately, those are restricted to the Immigration and Emigration facts.

My way around this depends on not using both Immigration and Emigration, as they are two sides of the same coin... I use Emigration for the intended purpose, and modify the Immigration Fact definition as follows:

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The Witness roles are shown below

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Screenshot 2023-03-28 104705.png (19.29 KiB) Viewed 1516 times

[Gowermick]

Is this really necessary? The only way to get from A to B is to travel! I simply use a residence fact for each place visited, knowing the individual must have travelled from last residence to get there
For example, my dad travelled from Nigeria, via the Med, Suez canal and Aden, to get to India during WW2, but I just listed his stopover points as residence facts along the way, so they could get mapped in FH.

[LornaCraig]

Gowermick:
That approach wouldn't suit everyone, as 'Residence' normally implies something more permanent than a stop-over point. And you could end up with a great many Residence facts when a single Travel fact could be used to summarise the journey and the mode(s) of transport.

What about people who crossed the Atlantic to visit relatives and then returned home? How long would they need to stay with their relatives before it's reasonable to say they were 'residing' with them? Would you give them a separate Residence for everyone they visited?

And if you find someone in a ship's passenger list it makes sense to use the list as a source for a Travel fact. It tells you which port they sailed from and which port they arrived at but not (usually) where they went next. You can't assume they stayed (resided), even briefly, at the port where they disembarked.

[tatewise]

The Tools > Fact Types... command has the Extended Set which offers the Arrival, Departure and Destination facts.

The FHUG Knowledge Base Entering Standard and Custom Fields for Facts explains how to add a To: Place field to a fact using the example of a Flew from custom fact.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Is this really necessary? The only way to get from A to B is to travel! I simply use a residence fact for each place visited, knowing the individual must have travelled from last residence to get there

If you have details about how and when they travelled and with whom, where would you record those if you're only using Residence facts?

I have 7 relatives (great-aunts and uncles) who emigrated to Canada (some as British Home Children, others as adults sponsored by the Salvation Army.)

Some of them then travelled back to England and home again to Canada. Passenger records show their dates of travel, who they travelled with, who they were travelling to visit... As Lorna points out, they were never at anytime after their emigration 'resident' in England -- they were only ever visitors to their father and/or brother.

Also, the information associated with transport might reveal connections you hadn't previously seen -- I have an ancestor who travelled in his 60s from England to the States to live with his second (deceased) wife's son... Which I wouldn't have known without the relative passenger record.

[Gowermick]

Lorna & Helen

I tend to keep it simple, and add notes when necessary.
I really can't see point of adding more and more new fact types to cover specific situations, when existing facts seem to cover most situation quite well, albeit with a bit of imagination and tongue in cheek.

Perhaps it would be nice if GEDCOM had a simple place or location fact with associated date, so one could map them, but as they don't, I'll stick with residences and note

[ColeValleyGirl]

it would be nice if GEDCOM had a simple place or location fact with associated date,

Like the Residence fact? Although you would still need to decide how long stopping in one place qualified as a residence.

[Gowermick]

it would be nice if GEDCOM had a simple place or location fact with associated date,

Like the Residence fact? Although you would still need to decide how long stopping in one place qualified as a residence.

No, as you say, that implies they were ‘living’ there for a period.
I was thinking more about a person being at a specific place at a certain time. e.g someone wasdriving through Turkey during the earthquake, i.e something of historical interest. Residence somewhat fits the bill, but doesn’t quite seem right

[Valkrider]

No, as you say, that implies they were ‘living’ there for a period.
I was thinking more about a person being at a specific place at a certain time. e.g someone wasdriving through Turkey during the earthquake, i.e something of historical interest. Residence somewhat fits the bill, but doesn’t quite seem right

You could always make a comment about this on the Gedcom 7 Github and see if it gets any consideration there.

[tatewise]

All recent GEDCOM versions (5.5, 5.5.1, 7.0) allow standard facts (like RESIdence) to have a subsidiary TYPE field that holds a "descriptive word or phrase used to further classify the superstructure".
So a RESIdence TYPE could be 'Temporary' or 'Rented', etc.
However, the TYPE description field is only accessed via the FH 'All' tab and is not well supported elsewhere.
FHUG Knowledge Base Recording a Civil Partnership gives an example of the Type Descriptor to classify a MARRiage event as a Civil Partnership.

[KFN]

So a RESIdence TYPE could be 'Temporary' or 'Rented', etc.
However, the TYPE description field is only accessed via the FH 'All' tab and is not well supported elsewhere.
FHUG Knowledge Base Recording a Civil Partnership gives an example of the Type Descriptor to classify a MARRiage event as a Civil Partnership.

Tatewise, I agree 100% with your points above. The unfortunate thing is that far too many programs don’t support the TYPE tag and are trying to mess with the next release of GEDCOM (possibly v7.1) to include dozens of new tags that I have argued should use the TYPE tag to modify the primary tag as prescribed in the documentation.

Personally I thing programs that don’t support or understand the value of the TYPE, should fix their programs. Your example of the MARR tag being the primary with TYPE examples of {civil, religious, common law} is one of the best I can think of. From a data standpoint the listed types roll up to the same general concept.

I also use BIRT.TYPE = “still” and ”live”.
DEAT.TYPE = “natural”, “murder”, “war time”

[Johnwrosser]

Could some kind soul, set up a 'travel' fact for me as being a technophobe I'm unable to do it myself? If necessary, you could guide me through the steps to set it up, please?

[ColeValleyGirl]

Could some kind soul, set up a 'travel' fact for me as being a technophobe I'm unable to do it myself? If necessary, you could guide me through the steps to set it up, please?

Which approach do you want to take? The approach I detailed here: https://fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php ... 36#p135729 ? Or the approach tatewise suggested here: https://fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php ... 36#p135733

[Johnwrosser]

The first option seems more clear to me. Is it possible to use the emigration type and adapt it to Travel without losing the original emigration fact?

[ColeValleyGirl]

The first option seems more clear to me. Is it possible to use the emigration type and adapt it to Travel without losing the original emigration fact?

No. Adapting it to Travel overrides the Emigration Fact, so you can only have one of Travel and Emigration available. (Plus Immigration, of course). However, you can reset the Travel/Emigration fact to the default settings at any time, if ypu want to.

[Johnwrosser]

Seems a bit daft to me! Why can't someone set up a separate fact for travel?

[AdrianBruce]

Seems a bit daft to me! Why can't someone set up a separate fact for travel?

The use of two places is hard-coded by Calico Pie into the (standard) Emigration and Immigration facts - the second place is an extension to the GEDCOM standard. Travel isn't a standard GEDCOM fact, instead it's user defined so CP have no knowledge of what we'd call it if they wanted to code the double place. You might have Travel, I might have Journey, someone else might have Trip. It starts snowballing...

To be explicit - any of us can have a Travel event, if we set it up as a Custom Fact. What we can't have, because we can't set it up, is a Travel event with two places.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Why can't someone set up a separate fact for travel?

Mike Tate has already pointed you to the example you need to create your own fact: Show Fact Fields in the Property Box

You will need to adjust the name and label to be Travelled, and modify the sentence templates to reflect that.

Do you want to add fellow-travellers as witnesses? If so, look at how witnesses are defined and referenced in the Emigration fact.