* Recording Death and Burial Entries

[NickWalker]

I am making good progress with the next major version of Ancestral Sources that will include support for Death certificates and Burial entries.

For Burial entries if the date of death isn't recorded I will have an option available to create a death with a date estimated as, e.g. 3 days before the burial - this would be an option configurable by the user.

Now if someone has an occupation and/or residence recorded in the burial record, what do I do about the date.

e.g. St Elphin Church, Warrington, Lancashire: Burial 1 Oct 1800: John Smith, Farmer of Appleton, Cheshire.

So this creates:
Burial fact for John with Place/Address Warrington, date 1 Oct 1800
Death fact for John of 28 Sep 1800 (Est) (assuming this option selected). Place of death would be either blank or option to use residence or place of burial
Occupation: Farmer, Place - same as residence or blank
Residence: Appleton, Cheshire

For date in Occupation and Residence do I:
a) Leave the date blank - personally I dislike facts without a date
b) Use the burial date - there is some logic to this as this is the date the information was recorded. However, it is a bit odd for someone to have an occupation and residence after they have died! e.g. 1 Oct 1800
c) Use the death date (if there is one). e.g 28 Sep 1800 (Est)
d) Use a Before Death date (if there is one). One slight problem with this is that it isn't possible to have an estimated before date. e.g. Bef 28 Sep 1800
e) Use Before Burial date. e.g. Bef 1 Oct 1800

I realise I probably need to have options for all these things to try to keep everyone happy. But I'd be interested in knowing what you all think so I can make a decision on default values. You may of course have other suggestions.

Personally I'd probably go with option c. But then what to do if the user decides they don't want to create an estimated date of death?

Nick

ID:6573

[tatewise]

Would one solution be to use the Before Death Date if there is one, but if not then use Before Burial Date but without a day e.g. Before Oct 1800?

Both Occupation and Residence Facts have a Normal Time Frame of Life.
So to avoid problems with this, their Dates must not be later than the Death Date.

[johnmorrisoniom]

I agree with mikes suggestion, as this is how I record the events at the moment.
If I have a burial date in the 1st 3 days of a month I wil put death as being the previous month other wise will use the month of burial (But not estimated)

[BillH]

Nick,

I don't think I would use an estimated death date as I've found burial dates to range widely, often more than three days after death.

I think I would just leave the date blank and put in the note that it was at the time of death.

Bill

[RSellens]

Hi Nick,
My preference is to use 'before burial date' on the occupation/residence, but then not have a date (or place) on the 'death' event unless specifically specified.

Richard