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  1. #1
    Soot is offline Novice
    Windows 7 64bit Access 2016
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    Database for historical research

    I have a question regarding a database that I am trying to build for my PhD-research in the field of history. It is the aim of my research to follow people throughout a number of years. Throughout each of those years important variables (e.g. death of a parent, apprenticeship, address, ..) may and will change. But how can I include these chronological changes in my database? Do I 1) add multiple records per person for each year and change the variables per year or 2) use a specific element of Access that allows me to do this?



    Help is much appreciated as my pile of books on Access can’t seem to provide an answer!

  2. #2
    orange's Avatar
    orange is online now Moderator
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    Welcome to the forum.
    You're not the first PhD candidate facing such a task, and it doesn't seem that keeping some sort of notes would be limited to history.
    What/How did those successful candidates manage their "documentation"?
    Why do you think you need a relational database? Why Access?
    Do you have a list of the "generic questions/topics" you think you will need to retrieve info from that database?

    Here is a link to information I provided to another poster re: Database Planning.

    Good luck.

  3. #3
    CJ_London is offline VIP
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    at the simplest level it sounds like you need two tables - a table for people and a table for events. Something like

    tblPersons
    PersonPK autonumber
    PersonName text
    PersonEthnics text

    tblEvents
    eventPK autonumber
    PersonFK long - link to tblPersons
    EventDate date
    EventDescription text/memo
    EventLocation text

    Depending on what you are recording, you could include date of birth as a field in tblPersons or as an event in tblEvents (more likely the latter since you will probably want to record where the birth occurred.

    Similarly you might have a separate table for locations so you can more easily associate locations with events and therefore people. Plus locations can have more detail such a village/town/county etc

  4. #4
    orange's Avatar
    orange is online now Moderator
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    Here is a draft model I was building.
    I see Ajax has responded.

    Oh well, for what it's worth.
    Click image for larger version. 

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  5. #5
    Soot is offline Novice
    Windows 7 64bit Access 2016
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    Thank you both for your reply. I feel like maybe I should be a little more detailed on the complicated nature of the information that I am gathering. Among my variables are the age of the apprentice; the profession of their father; whether their father was deceased; in which profession they were apprenticed; who their master artisan was; … Because I can follow these apprentices throughout multiple years, each of these variables can change each year (their father might die, they might change masters, they might change professions, ..). So it is quite possible that every record can have different variables.

    So if I need to split events into seperate, related tables: is it a problem that I might need twentysomething seperate tables due to my many variables?

  6. #6
    CJ_London is offline VIP
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    Oranges example may be better than mine in that you can relate people to the same event.

    the variables don't change each year, they are just events. You may need to expand the tables to include some extra fields which may or may not get completed depending on the type of event or whether known - such as profession of the father - suggest would go in the persons table, whilst date of fathers death would go in the events table. And age is a calculated variable (date-date of birth) and should never be stored.

    You have been provided with the bones of the database structure, it is up to you how you add to it for the different events - so far what you have described event wise requires just two fields - the date of the event and what the event was

    01/01/1675 father dies
    10/06/1678 apprenticed to stonemason under john Smith
    20/12/1688 changed profession to artist

    You need to sit down and work out what it is you want to record and what you are going to do with the data - this will dictate what goes into each table. You may need more than two - orange and myself have suggested some and you may want some lookup tables. But you only want one events table

  7. #7
    orange's Avatar
    orange is online now Moderator
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    Soot,

    Look at the link I provided in my earlier post.
    Follow the link and review the info at the various sites. Work through some tutorials; watch some videos.
    You need to know some database concepts before jumping into Access or any database.
    You really need to have an understanding of what you are getting into, (if you are PhD student, you know what study and preparation are all about), before taking a wild leap.

    Forewarned is forearmed.
    Good luck.

Please reply to this thread with any new information or opinions.

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