I see Attributes are available on People (Individuals), Families, Events, but not on Places, which lack free-range custom meta-data aside from Tags.
(Sources/Citations/Repositories have a rich web of meta-data slots, so don’t need Attributes for free-range custom meta-data.)
I’ve found Custom Types useful on Places (e.g. Cemetery), and
Attributes useful on Events (e.g. Ship=Arbella on Event type Immigration).
I can use Tags to filter for Quaker or Congregational church or burying ground/cemetery.
Enclosed By and Alternate Names somewhat cover the Town was set-off-from formerly-larger town, and town charter date is somewhat covered by former name dates, but that’s not exact - one name may be in effect for village or parish before charter/separation, and possibly change name later.
I’d prefer a formal capturing of meta-data about town history.
I am envisioning have attributes (or relations) -
Settled (year),
Town (year) (meaning when granted governance),
Settled From (free text, or list of Place),
Set off from (free text, or list of Place) implication usually being at Town formation year, but some towns grew after too
Is this something that might be considered, or has been and rejected?
Is there a better / good-enough way to have formal meta-data for towns.
This is another reason for why I have asked multiple times for Events for Places.
With that, we could have created whole histories of places, cities, farms, real estate, ships, vessels etc. etc. AND linked people to those Events.
The different people linked to the places’ events would be linked for the correct period in time, changes or additions to those places would be added for the correct period in time etc. etc.
And with Main-/Sub-Events, it would even be possible to add Events in an even more historical correct way, because in most circumstances, a small but important Event usually happens during a larger event… e.g., a family’s migration from Germany to USA will be a multi-event journey., or a ships lifespan will have a lot of journeys that again might have a lot of events like docking, accident onboard etc., or a military unit will be a part of a bigger military unit, and will have both its own events, e.g., minor battles, but also be part of the bigger battles on the way to “victory”.
All of those different Sub-Events will happens/occur at different places to different periods of time in the main events timespan.
With this approach it will also be easier to see why some people was at a place at the same time, because they might be linked to an event at that place that occurred in the same period of time… We might find out how our GGGGF met GGGGM at the road cross outside of Salem (PS. this last sentence is pure fiction).
With time enabled attributes it is no way to link people to that specific Event/Attribute, so instead you will need to add an event for the person and semi-link the person to the location by adding the place to the event…, but there will be no direct link between a person and that specific “Attribute”/Event.
Thank you. When Place Model enhancements arrive in 5.3 i will make full use of them!
(Now if only i can find the missing page from “The 169 Towns of Connecticut” … or I’ll have to reconstruct it from Wikipedia for the towns between P and S?)
Time-dependent attributes (or the Events-for-Places that @StoltHD mentions, seemingly similar) sound good too.