Terry's TMG Tips

Terry's Census Tag
for 1850 and Later U.S. Census

This page updated 15 Apr 2014

Applies to Version 8 & 9

This article describes the Census Tag that I have developed for the 1850 and later US census – the years in which every member of the household was named. I have used these the techniques for some state censuses, I expect they could be adapted to any other census that list each member of household by name.

My article on Recording Census Information describes my approach to recording census information, which is aligned with the Census Tag I describe here, and some important caveats about its application. Two companion articles describe my Pre-1850 Census tag, and a simplified version some users may prefer.

My method treats the official head of household and his or her spouse, if present, on an equal basis. In this description I refer to them as "head(s) of household." Users who prefer a strict definition of "head of household" may have to make significant changes to this system to satisfy their needs.

What It Does

The Census Tag described below records and provides narrative output with the following information:

For the head(s) of household:

• Census title, e.g. "1850 Federal Census"
• Date of enumeration, and address (when available), municipality, county and state of residence
• Miscellaneous notes, e.g. "reporting real estate valued at $600" or "reporting the family did not own a radio"
• Lists children of the head(s) of household, then other members of the household, optionally mentioning people not entered in the Data Set, such a servants, boarders, etc. Relationships to the head(s) of household are described.

For the other members of the household:

• Census title, e.g. "1850 Federal Census"
• Municipality, county and state of residence
• Name(s) of head(s) of household
• Relationship to head(s) of household
• Miscellaneous notes, e.g. "attending school"
• Other members of the household may be listed, i.e. for a son of the head of household whose wife and children are also present, they can be listed in his narrative

This provides a complete picture of the household in the narratives about the head(s) of household, as well as key information in the narratives about other members. This works well in narrative output to Second Site where each person's narrative stands on it's own, but at the price of some repetition in Journal narratives when the whole family may be listed together.

Dealing with Relationships Between Household Members

There is a virtually endless list of possible relationships of members of the household have to the head(s) of household and each other – daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, with or without their children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, grandchildren with or without their parents, uncles, aunts, and many more.

My Census Tag deals automatically with households of one or two parents and their child or children. All other relationships are dealt with by entries in the Memo fields, as described below. Only in rare cases might one choose to customize Sentence Structures for individual Tags to obtain desired output.

For simplicity, children of the head(s) of household are described as "children," "son," or "daughter." Thus sons and daughters are not listed separately when both exist in the household, and a family with only sons or only daughters still has them listed as "children." Describing the children more precisely is possible but adds considerable complexity to the system, for little gain, in my opinion.

Dealing with One or Both Parents and Children

The system deals automatically with:

• One or both parents being in the household, and if only one, whether it is the father or mother.
• One or more than one child in the household, and if only one, whether that child is a son or daughter.

This is done by what at first seems to be a counter-intuitive use of Roles. We specify the number and sex of the children by assigning the following Roles to the Parents:

• "Principal" - if there are more than one child present (or if none are).
• "one Son" - if there is one child, and it is a son.
• "one Daughter" - if there is one child, and it is a daughter.

Likewise, we specify which parents are present by assigning the following Roles to the Children:

• "with Parents" - if both parents are present
• "with Father" - if only the father is present
• "with Mother" - if only the mother is present

Keeping this roundabout Role assignment scheme in mind may make it easier to understand the discussion in the sections below.

Sentence Structures for 1880 and Later Census

Below are the Roles and corresponding Sentence Structures I use for the 1880 Census Tag. Those for later years are the same except for the change in the year. Slightly simpler ones can be used for 1850 through 1870, as described at the end of this article.

My system requires custom Sentences for the standard Principal and Witness Roles, and the creation of the custom Roles listed below. If you are not familiar with modifying Sentence Structures, you may find my article on Modifying Tag Sentence Structures helpful. If you are not familiar with using Roles, my Tutorial on Creating and Applying Roles may be helpful.

Roles used for head of household and spouse:

Roles used for children of the head(s) of household:

Roles used for other members of household:

Entering Data in the Census Tag

• Enter the head of household as Principal, and if that's a man with a wife listed, enter her as the second Principal. Exception: if the people I care about are listed a roomers or the like, and I don't care about people listed as the "official" head of household, then I enter my target people as Principals, and note the official head of household in the Memo, e.g. "listed as boarding with G. G. Jones and his family." Assign Roles as described in the table above.

• Enter the enumeration date as the Date field.

• Enter the location, with as much detail as is available, in the Place fields.

• If the household includes one or more children of the head(s) of household, enter them as Witnesses. Assign Roles as described in the table above.

• Enter other members of the household (those that you choose to enter as people in your Data Set) as Witnesses. Assign them the Role of "Witness," "Other," or "Other2" as described in the table above.

• In the first segment of the Memo field, I enter anything else interesting that has not been put in another tag. Examples: value of personal and real estate, information about servants or boarders, presence of a land lady, ownership of a radio, or proximity to other households of interest. The Memo field is also the main tool for recording the relationships for the list of household members for the head(s) of household narratives. See the Relationships for the Head(s) of Household section below for details.

• If there is anything of special interest regarding the children or other members of household that will not be entered in other tags, such as was attending school, I enter it in the Witness Memo in the Add Witness screen for that person.

The Expected Output

Before proceeding with a discussion of how to manage the relationships, some examples of the expected output may be helpful:

Example 1 – Heads of Household and their Children only:

Example 2 – Household including Other Persons:

Recording Relationships for the Head(s) of Household Narrative

As we see above, children of the head(s) of household are automatically managed by selecting the appropriate Roles. But household members with other relationships must be managed manually, using the tag Memo. (Readers who wish to understand the mechanics of the Tag may want to refer to the How it Works section, below.)

For example, to include the son-in-law and his children in the parent's narrative in Example 2 above, the following was entered in the tag Memo:

||as were her husband, [R:Witness], and their children, [RF:Other]

Note that the entry starts with a pair of vertical bars, because the list of household members who are to be appended to the list of children must be in Memo segment 2. There is an introductory phrase "as were" and then entries for each different group of household members, together with their relationship statements. In this case we have two such groups; "her husband, [R:Witness]" and "their children, [RF:Other]."

It would be possible to type the names into the memo instead of using the name variables you see here. I use the variables for four reasons: 1) it avoids mistakes typing the names, 2) the names automatically change if I later change the names of the persons involved, 3) when I output my data to a website using Second Site, each name becomes a link allowing the reader to jump to that person's entry, and 4) when there is more than one person with the Role, as with the children in this example, a single variable produces the entire list of all of them.

Note that the Role of "Witness" is a true Role, and is used as any other Role in the name variable. Also, note that used the first-name variable for the children - [RF:Other] - to be consistent with the way I list the names of the children of the head(s) of household.

If there was some notation that I wanted to appear before the list of members of the household, I would enter it in the first segment of the tag Memo. For example, this entry in the tag Memo:

reporting the family owned its home||as were her husband, [R:Witness], and their children, [RF:Other]

would produce this narrative for the parents:

Should there be no children of the head(s) of household present, but only others, a slightly different approach is used. In this case, the list of other household members goes in the first Memo segment, because there is no list of children being produced by the tag. Say the household contains only the mother and a sister of the wife. In such a case the entry in the Memo would be something like:

with her mother, [R:Witness], and widowed sister, [R:Other], listed as living with them

would produce this narrative for the heads of household:

If you want to mention others, such as servants or boarders, that you do not enter into your Data Set, enter whatever you want to say about them directly into either the first or second memo segment, depending on where you want them to appear. For example, if this household included a hired hand, you might enter this in the Memo:

with a 32 year-old hired hand, Edward Lipps, listed as living with them

which would produce this narrative for the heads of household:

As seen from these examples, most situations can be managed by adding text to the tag Memo. In using this system, I've only found a few cases were I decided to make local changes to the Sentence Structure for the Principals to get the results I wanted. Most of them involved heads of households with multiple marriages, with children from several marriages present in the home. In such a case I might chose to edit the Sentence Structure, and assign the Roles "with Mother" and "with Father" to the children, rather than assigning some of the children to general Roles, like "Other."

Recording Relationships for Other Household Members

Narratives for children of the head(s) of household are automatically managed by assigning their correct Roles, in general. Only if you want to mention relationships with others, such as a spouse or child in the household, would you need to take any special measures. That is done by adding text to the Witness Memo, as described next.

In most cases explanatory text is entered in the Witness Memo for the other members of the household. Perhaps the simplest case is a parent, sibling, or other relative in the household. For a mother living with her son and his wife one might enter in the Witness Memo:

her son and his wife

This would produce a narrative for her like this:

When you want to mention in one household member's narrative others who are present, it becomes a bit more complicated. For example, to obtain the son-in-law's narrative in Example 2 above, the following would be entered in his Witness Memo:

his wife's parents, with his wife, [R:with Parents], and their children, [RF:Other]

Note that the first part of the phrase, "his wife's parents," describes his relationship with the head(s) of household. This is similar to the example above, for the mother of the head of household.

The second part - "with his wife, [R:with Parents], and their children, [RF:Other]" - is used only when this person has a special relationship with other members of the household that you choose to mention, in this case that his wife and children were present. This same method can be used for the children of the head(s) of household as well. For example for his wife we might add to her Witness Memo:

with her husband, [R:Witness], and their children, [RF:Other]

This would produce a narrative for her like this:

One can obtain a bit more variety if desired by editing the Witness Sentence Structures, but that's not really required. I think most situations can be handled by entries in the Witness Memo.

How It Works

For those who what to understand in more detail how the tag works, and especially for those who what to modify it to meet their own preferences, the following discussion may be helpful. We will consider separately the control of the head(s) of household's narratives, those for their children, and those for the other members of the household, since these controls are largely separate.

The narrative for the head(s) of household is produced by a Sentence Structure with the following five elements, each providing a specific part of the narrative output. The male Sentence for the Principal Role shown is used for illustration:

From this we might observe that the narrative for the head(s) of household is controlled by:

• Assigning the correct Roles to the Principals, so that the output text will reflect either a single child or multiple children.

• Assigning the correct Roles to children of the head(s) of household, so the output text will automatically list them with correctly in their parent's narratives.

• Assigning the Roles "Witness," "Other," and "Other2" to other members of the household, such that each Role is only used for persons with the same relationship to the head(s) of household.

• Entering text and name variables in the tag Memo that describes the relationship of the other members of the household to the head(s) of household. See the Relationships for the Head(s) of Household section above for details of how this is done.

The narrative for the children of the head(s) of household is produced by a Sentence Structure with the following four elements, each providing a specific part of the narrative output. The Sentence for the "with Parents" Role shown is used for illustration:

From this we might observe that the narrative for the children of the head(s) of household is controlled by:

• Assigning the correct Roles to children of the head(s) of household, so the output text in their narratives will automatically mention their parents.

• If they should have spouses and/or children of their own in the household, entering text and name variables in the Witness Memo that describes the relationship of these other members of the household to them. See the Relationships for Other Household Members section above for details of how this is done.

The narrative for the other members of the household is produced by a Sentence Structure with the following four elements, each providing a specific part of the narrative output:

From this we might observe that the narratives for all the other members of the household is controlled by:

• Assigning them the Roles "Witness," "Other," or "Other2."

• Entering text in the Witness Memo that describes their relationship to the head(s) of household. See the Recording Relationships for Other Household Members section above for details of how this is done.

• Optionally entering text and name variables in the Witness Memo that describes the relationship of these other members of the household to them.

Sentence Structures for 1850 to 1870 Census

The discussion above described the Sentences I use for 1880 and later. In 1850 through 1870 the census did not report the full address of the household, so I use slightly simplified Sentence Structures for these years:

For the three Roles for principals, the term:    < [LCI],>< [LCN],> [LS]<, at [LD]>

is replaced with simply:       < of [L]>

For all the Roles used for Witnesses, the term:    <of [LCI],>< [LCN],> [LS]

is replaced with simply:       < of [L]>

Downloading this Tag Type

You can modify your existing Census Tag Type or create custom ones by copying the Roles and Sentences from this page, editing them as you prefer. Or, you can download and install a copy of my Tag Types using the Tag Type Import function (Not available in TMG 7).

This download contains a set of Tag Types, one for each census year. I prefer a separate Tag Type for each census year, and there are slight differences between some of them.

If you choose to download you can import in either of two ways:

• Replace your existing Census Tag Types – assuming you have created your own set with a different Tag Type for each year, and use the same names I do (Cens1880, Cens1900, etc.). Doing so will remove any Roles not present in my Census Tag Types. If you have actually assigned any of those Roles to people in your Data Set, you cannot use this method.
• Add as an additional Census Tag Types – the only alternative if you do not have separate Tag Types for each census year using the same names I use.

I recommend that you add them as additional Tag Types, even if you already have separate ones for each year. Doing so will avoid problems with your existing Census Tags if you don't plan to convert them to the new system immediately.

If you want to proceed with the download and import process:

1. Down load my custom Tag Type file here: Terry's 1850-1940 Tag Types

2. You have a choice about where to save the file. You can save it in an easy-to-find location, such as on your desktop, and then locate it when you import it in Step 3 below. Or, you can save it in your TMG "Export" folder, which is were TMG first looks for it. I recommend that location if you might want to import the Tag Types again into different Projects. The default location of the Export folder is shown below, but it may differ on your system if you have customized your file locations:

3. Open TMG, then use the Tools > Tag Types menu command to open the Tag Types screen. On that screen, click the Import Button, and on the Import screen that opens select the "terry's census tags 1850-1930.xtt" file. If you have saved it someplace other than the Export folder, you will have to navigate to that location to locate it. Click the Open button, and the Import Tag Type screen opens:

In that screen, you may choose to either:

• Replace your existing Census Tag Types – if you have separate Tag Types for each census year with the same names I use. To do that, select the first option, "Import and overwrite if the tag type already exists." Click the OK button. If successful, you will get a confirmation message that the new Tag Types have been imported. If you have used any Roles not included in my custom Tag Types, you will receive a message that one or more Tag Types were not imported. You can then either create the new Roles manually, or use the alternate method below (recommended).
• Add as an additional Census Tag Types – recommended. To do that, select the second option, "Import and don't overwrite." If you have Tag Types with the same names, the imported Tag Type will be numeric suffix unless you check the "Add a Prefix" box below and enter a prefix, which will be applied to the Tag Type name. Click the OK button and you should get a confirmation message that the new Tag Types have been imported.

For further details on exporting and importing Tag Types, see my article Exporting and Importing Tag Types.

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