I’m finally upgrading to Gramps 4.1, which changes how it handles places. It now builds a hierarchy of places.
Which means I now have some issues:
- Do I make overseas colonies children of the controlling country? I’m thinking so, but in most cases they weren’t considered part of that country the way that Iowa is considered part of the US. What do I make the contained in relationship to mean?
- Particularly if I don’t make them contained in a parent, what type do I assign to those territories? Colony? Possession?
- The hierarchy also has a concept of time, in that a division can be part of different containing places over time (e.g., Deadwood part of Dakota Territory until it became part of South Dakota). But it doesn’t seem to have a way to specify that a place is independent for a time and not independent (e.g., Bavaria was an independent kingdom until German unification). I’m not sure how to handle that.