What’s Been Happening

Importing TMG data – testing that the developing importing code can work on larger TMG projects. A project with 160,000 individuals has “stress tested” our import process and ensured that the process maintains accuracy.
We continue to follow the TMG web lists to understand which features are being used and in particular those options that are creating difficulties for some users. From this we examine ways to make HRE more effective to users so that importing data is easier and ‘best fit’.

Researching issues (like historical dates) where the TMG DATE model doesn’t deal with known calendar issues. We want to ensure that HRE can deal with a wide variety of cases:

  • As you may know, countries implemented the Julian/Gregorian calendar change in different years, but did you know that Sweden decided to make the (then 11-day) adjustment gradually by excluding the leap days (29 February) from each of 11 successive leap years, 1700 to 1740? But it got worse – they forgot to drop the 1704 and 1708 leap days, so they reverted back to the Julian calendar, by inventing a February 30th! They finally sorted out the mess they had created in 1753, when Wednesday, 17 February, was followed by Thursday, 1 March.
  •  Designing and implementing a form of HRE date storage so we can save dates that can include hours and minutes within a day. This enables sequencing of events within a day. Examples: for stages within a battle or timing of multiple births.
  •  Ensuring that HRE date input can allow the user to set the range of a Circa, Before and After definition according to the user’s needs.
  •   Examples:   Circa date (but within 3 days each way),
                            Before date (within 9 months prior).
  •  The HRE date range now includes Before Common Era dates (BCE), so up to 100,000 years of human history can be entered.
  •   Example:    Han dynasty – from 206 BCE to 220 CE.

A further extension of the HRE date range to allow operations on

  • Million Years Ago (MYA) dates which are used by astronomers and geologists to study historical times of the Earth and the Universe.
    Example:     Jurassic period – from 199.6 MYA to 145.5 MYA.

As indicated in the last newsletter, we have now built and tested the two functional layers (the ‘Business Layer’ and the ‘Database Layer’) supporting the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and implemented various windows for displaying data.

Next Objectives

  • Complete the HRE date storage re-design
  • Implement this in code
  • Rework the import from TMG of dates and names
  • Move on to Event imports.

Newsletter Changes

We wish to thank Tracey Milligan for his sterling work in keeping the newsletter mailing list and distribution process going since its inception. Tracey has had to take a back seat due to health issues and we wish him all the best for a speedy recovery.
Thanks also to Bruce Fairhall, who has taken over Tracey’s work and now publishes his first newsletter!