* Recording Naval Allotment relationships

[amk1609]

FindMyPast has just made available online the British Royal Navy Allotment Declarations 1795-1852 (from the National Archives). These give details of sailors who allocated part of their wages for the maintenance of their mothers/wives/families. I have already found records for 2 ancestors allocating to mother/wife/sister. Would like to record this so that it shows the link between the 2 individuals (a bit like the Witness fact) - has anyone done anything similar? Have searched the forums but not found anything specific for recording this, nor anything in the Military records.

[tatewise]

Andrea, that is new one on me.

It is probably best if you create a Custom Event named something like RN Allotment.
In that create a Role named say Beneficiary for the relatives. (I could not think of a better Witness Role name.)
You will have to adjust all the Sentence Templates as appropriate by using the Will Event as an example.
See how_to:narrative_report_fact_sentence_templates|> Narrative Report Fact Sentence Templates for advice.

Are you comfortable with creating custom facts and adjusting the settings & templates, or do you need detailed advice?

[amk1609]

Thanks Mike - that is what I thought I would have to do. OK with custom facts, thanks again for the advice

[amk1609]

Mike, would appreciate a bit more help here! Have created my custom (Naval) fact as suggested, and it works fine except for one thing:

Information on these allotments includes effectively 2 different addresses: for the sailor making the allotment, the name of the ship he was serving on (and I have used this in the place name, including it in part of the sentence as 'while serving on {_place}'), and the other is the place where the beneficiary was living at the time. I have already used the Note field to describe the relationship (i.e. his wife, his sister, etc) but would like to include the beneficiary's address as well (sometimes it is a full address, others just a town).
Any ideas?
Thanks

[tatewise]

There are a couple of approaches.

1) Separate Residence Facts
Instead of trying to incorporate each Beneficiary Address into the Naval fact, use a separate Residence fact for each person, but with the same Source Citation, just like you would for other facts with Witnesses whose Address is supplied.

2) Witness Role Note
When you add each Beneficiary not only do you set Role but you can also add a Note.
That is where to enter the Address, and caters for multiple Beneficiaries each with a different Address.
Then in the Witness Sentence Template use such as < living at {%CUR~WITN.NOTE2%}>.

If there are multiple Beneficiaries, then your single Relationship technique has a problem because it only allows for one relative. That can be resolved using the Witness Note as above. However, that introduces another problem; how to differentiate Address from Relative.

See how_to:narrative_report_fact_sentence_templates|> Narrative Report Fact Sentence Templates for advice about Custom Fact Fields such as those Address and Relative meta-fields.
The Witness Note would look like the following with either line missing and in either order:
Relative: his sister
Address: 123 High Street, Newton, Kent

The Witness Sentence Template would use something like:
< {=GetLabelledText(%CUR~WITN.NOTE2%,"Relative: ")}>< at {=GetLabelledText(%CUR~WITN.NOTE2%,"Address: ")}>

I know in this case it is unlikely, but what if the Naval person could be male or female or unknown gender?
Then you could use the following and omit his/her from the Relative: field:
{=CombineText( Sex(%CUR_PRIN%," his "," her "," their "), GetLabelledText(%CUR~WITN.NOTE2%,"Relative: "), , )}

[E Wilcock]

I am delighted to read this - Not because I rejoice in your two address problem, but because you have provided a further example of the need for Custom Events offering two place fields.

There is a long discussion of this in my own search for a dual place Deportation event on the lines of the fh emigration event provided by Calico Pie.

I would really like a formal request to Calico Pie to allow this liberalisation? And not for it to have to depend on a majority vote. Majority votes seem to me counter productive. I mean how many users need Chinese and Polish characters in the same database?

But users would benefit from two place custom Events. Regardless of the fact that in reports and exports the info eventually goes to a note field. Now we have Deportation and Naval Allottments - just two examples. And I seem to remember people would like a dual place travel event too.

[tatewise]

I sympathise with your point, but not sure what you mean by a "formal request to Calico Pie"?
The two established ways of requesting FH features is via the Wish List or how_to:about#problem_reporting|> Problem Reporting.

Anyway, this RN Allotment source is similar to many other source documents with multiple Address/Place details:-

• Birth Certificate ~ 1) Registration District, 2) Residence Where Born, 3) Residence of Informant
• Marriage Certificate ~ 1) Church Address, 2) Residence of Groom, 3 ) Residence of Bride
• Death Certificate ~ 1) Registration District, 2) Place of Death, 3) Birth Place, 4) Usual Address, 5) Informant Address
• Will ~ 1) Address of Testator, 2) Addresses of Executors, 3) Addresses of Witnesses
• RN Allotment ~ 1) Naval Ship, 2) 1st Beneficiary Address, 3) 2nd Beneficiary Address, 4) 3rd Beneficiary Address, etc

None of those are equivalent to the Emigration/Immigration example where one journey has two connected places.
They are all multiple distinct places where people performed the event or happen to reside at the time.

For sake of argument, as I see it, an Event happens within a few hours on one day.
The Emigration Event happens on one day in one place; the Immigration Event happens on another day in another place.
That is the way I am sure GEDCOM expects them to be recorded, and allows for other Events to occur in between.
For example somebody could get Married or make a Will en route.

FYI: The two Place Emigration/Immigration facts do NOT Report or Export the 2nd Place in a Note field.
It is only the Export Gedcom File Plugin that optionally moves the 2nd Place to the Note field.
For other facts with a Note meta-field for extra data such as a 2nd Place, their Sentence Template results in Narrative Reports that are indistinguishable from the two Place events.

[amk1609]

Thanks again Mike. Think I will stick to the 'simple' solution and use Residence for the beneficiary, it's not as if I have a large number. Re your other points - have not seen anything which has more than one beneficiary, and at that time (mine are mainly end of 18th/first half of 19th century) the Navy was restricted to men, so no problem with gender!
Always useful to have examples of how to deal with different scenarios should they arise in the future.