Merge is alerting not helpful
Answers
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But knowing that a person was definitely still living in year X means that the death date is not "completely unknown": it occurred after year X. Yes, there's a judgement call on the usefulness of this fact -- if X=the year of birth, then I agree that there's absolutely no point in entering it -- but that's true of nearly everything in genealogy. For someone born in 1900, "after 1989" is very much a useful fact in the death field.
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Paul W If I am helping someone try to figure out the children a William Smith, who died in 1792, I may have to wade through a few Smiths to make determinations. If the 1790 will of William Smith states that his son John may inherit upon turning age 21, I need to understand that the correct John Smith was born NO EARLEIR than 1769, IE he was born AFTER 1769. So I put on my tree a son John Smith, born after 1769 (until more information comes along). If I find a John Smith born in 1762, I know he is not in this family. If the will also states that grandchildren who are children of deceased son Adam will inherit, I also can now put Adam on my tree with a death date of before 1790. Because of the timeframe I am dealing with, before census records, death certificates, etc., this information may be the ONLY source I have about the vital dates of the sons of William Smith.
I hope this gives some insight into how bracketed dates are helpful.
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I agree that the best known information should be preserved. If that happens to be "after 1910", then record that. It might be important to someone trying to puzzle something out.
I use them quite a bit in my own records. I also use "probably" as a modifier on places to recognize when someone is unlikely to be the person involved in the event.
Family Search does not seem to handle approximate dates well. It treats them more like exact dates. It also seems like date modifiers can get accidentally lost in merges. So I rarely add that sort of information here.
The GRAMPS software allows for three different levels of "about".
Calculated - such as derived from age at time of death.
Estimated - fairly sure this is close.
About - in the neighborhood, or educated guess.
Something like this would be useful.
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I don't intend to argue any further my views on the rights or wrongs of "before / after" modifiers, as I am not dogmatic by nature and go along with the view (often exppressed by Gordon Collett) that, on some matters, there should be no strict rules and users should be able to make inputs to suit their needs - and what they feel is advantageous for others.
However, (yes, there had to be a proviso here, didn't there!) I would recommend greater use of the Collaboration / Notes section in helping make such issues unambiguous. In cases like this, I raise an item headed something like, "Death of John Smith ABCD-XYZ" (always including an ID, in case of a later merge). An example wording would be:
"Still alive at time of 1911 census. No WW1 death found on CWGC website. Not found in GRO death registrations, nor in 1921 census. Possibly emigrated, but no immigration records or death abroad found. Further checks to be made: Australia, NZ, Canada, US, etc. death records."
The usefulness of the Person page in respect of a missing death date is that (unlike with the other vitals) a (similar) note can be added in the Reason This Information Is Correct box, whilst still leaving the actual Date / Place fields blank.
On the issue of extending modifiers (about, before, after, etc.) to the pedigree view pages, I would encourage you to upvote Julia's suggestion at https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/128558/abbreviated-views-should-show-abbreviated-date-modifiers-not-bare-years#latest.
Obviously, I work for much of my time on the Person pages, but also like to take an overall view from "Landscape" of what dates I am missing from various family branches. Outwardly, it often appears I have found all the vitals for a whole branch, of several generations. However, a more detailed examination shows certain dates - like that apparent death in 1911- are not what they appear to be, at all.
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In terms of "falsifying information" this can be said of those using before and after for birth and death dates. In almost all of these cases the assumption is that because a person appears or does not appear on (usually) a census record that person was either either born or died before or after that date. The problem is this may or may not be true. In these cases the use of before and after can be "falsifying information" since census records are unreliable sources and names can appear after a person is dead or the name could be a relative that shared the same name (e.g. sibling, cousin, wife of family member). I recently had to unscramble a section of a tree where two brothers had 8 children all born on the exact same years, in the same exact order of male to female, and each with the exact same first names. This was actually a nice reminder of why not to name your children after their cousins. In a few cases some were visiting their uncles on a census or two and looked like duplicates on the census records.
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To whichever mod edited my post and made it look like I don't have even the most basic grasp of English grammar: next time, do me the courtesy of admitting to your authorship. I do not appreciate having my name attached to something that I did not write.
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