Community input request: fact type for post-mortem murder (news articles, court records, etc)

[KimberlyGreen]

I need some collective wisdom …

One of my grand-uncles, Frank, was seemingly beaten & left in a field to die. There are multiple news articles and court documents associated. (The accused were ultimately found not-guilty by juries.)

Typically, for each newspaper item I have for a family member, a Fact is attached called “Newspaper item”. That fact has a citation attached referencing the specific newspaper.

For Frank, there are twenty news articles, all post-mortem, reporting on his death and the subsequent murder trial. In this case, I’d rather not have 20 individual “Newspaper item” facts trailing his Death Fact.

I’m contemplating creating a single Fact type that I could aggregate all those articles & media under. But I’m having some challenges on what to call it. I’d like for it to be a Fact type I could re-use in the future. Something like we use Probate facts for, but for a different set of circumstances. (Frank’s father, my ggfather, was also murdered. Yeah, lots of violence in parts of my family.)

I’d welcome your suggestions on a good catch-all Fact Type name.

Note: I already have a custom fact type called “Criminal Act” for illegal activities perpetrated by some of my extended family members, including Frank (he was no angel).

[kbens0n]

For a real “lumpy” one… ex post facto

[MadDog]

I would put them all under Death. I don’t think of a “Newspaper item” as an actual fact/event but as supporting evidence to an actual event.

A marriage announcement in a newspaper, I attach to the actual Marriage event.

[OleSeminole]

One option would be to create a fact type for “Violence”. Although I am not sure that is what you need. Your explanation of needs seem to be focused around combining citations rather than facts. One option related to source citations would be to create a source (like a file of articles) with separate citations for each article that includes the full source citation information. I have reference manuscript files that contain multiple articles that I cite for example as the “Jones Family Newspaper Articles of 1875”.

[nkess]

Great question @KimberlyGreen as I have several in my and hubby’s lines who were murdered and a few more that died of mysterious circumstances.

I have no idea how many articles I have for my g-grandfather who was murdered ( original story suggested he MIGHT have committed suicide by tying himself to the railroad tracks) as I have not figured out exactly what I need to copy.

As for my 2nd cousin who was murdered by his German War Bride-- I have info from abt 13 different newspapers plus a picture of the couple ( one a recap in 2017) detailing the murder, the hunt for his wife, trial and after 5 years the wife being sent back to Germany–and a really nice article that tells abt her growing up in Germany-- copying just parts of each news article, I have at least 10 pages of notes.

So the question is

1. are you going to attach all 20 of your news articles as separate citations or just one?
2. are you looking to replace the death fact with this new fact or have both death and new fact?

As Mad Dog said you could use just death but can you attach 20 citations to it?-- or use another fact such as Murdered–Violent Death–Death by Violence–I tried setting up a fact for Murdered using the description as well as having a death fact— using the same date, I placed a-1 in the sort date so the murder fact shows up before the death fact.

On the fact, you could also do something like Newspaper Articles and Court info on Murder and perhaps use a range—that also showed up before his death info in my case-- think I would rather have my fact say something like newspaper articles and court info pertaining to the murder of William by his German War Bride Hildegarde

[wheat]

Trial By Newspaper -

[wheat]

agree, anyone who thinks newspaper articles are factually reliable should consider the “if it leads it bleeds” concept of journalism and how often the blood is manufactured “post-mortem”

[KimberlyGreen]

First, let me say thanks to those who replied. I appreciate your time & insights.

Next, let me address @MadDog & talk about my general approach to newspapers. I agree that newspaper articles are supporting evidence (of varying quality to be sure).

But an article’s publication / distribution IS an event that can appear on a timeline of a person’s life. And I’ve found that in many cases it doesn’t make sense to create some one-off event type. For example … a family picnic mentioned in the social pages. So I use the generic “Newspaper item” as a “fact” so that it appears in the timeline.

Here’s an example selection of what that looks like (courtesy of my ggfather William H. Shrauner) …

Note, for example, the April 1914 entry for Ed McAvoy’s funeral. The funeral wasn’t for William, but the news article mentioned him attending. So, the way to have that mention appear on Ed’s timeline and William’s is through the “Newspaper item” entry.

On a related topic, I’m generally a moderate lumper. For newspapers, I consider the publication as a whole to be the source. So, for example, The New York Times would be the collective source. Beneath that, individual citations are created that take into account the specific edition/publication date, page, etc. Here’s an example:

A citation from a particular newspaper might support multiple items or, as RM calls them “links”. In the case of a marriage announcement, that citation might be linked to several people’s names, the date of the marriage, their places of residence, etc.

Now, back to the topic of Frank, there are 20 citations from somewhat fewer-than-that newspapers. I could do what I typically do … create “Newspaper item” timeline events for each of those 20. But I don’t want to in this case.

I’d rather go a little more “lumpy” / clean-looking since they all reference a single event (a murder trial) that doesn’t currently have a standardized event type. To MadDog’s point, they do relate to Frank’s death too, but their main focus is on the subsequent trial.

Here’s the situation graphically … average person’s timeline, the messy situation with Frank to be avoided, the optimal solution. (Arrow lines represent citation “links”.)

To that end, I found @kbens0n 's suggestion sparked a lightbulb ! Latin (and Kevin ) to the rescue. I like ex post facto quite a bit. But, the Oxford dictionary defines it as “having [retroactive] effect or force” which isn’t quite there.

In the diagram above you can see that I’m leaning towards using another Latin phrase “post vitam” … after life, a temporal state. (Not “vita post mortem” referring to afterlife as in a spiritual state.) General enough to cover any events that happen after a person’s life.

I am still open to other words or phrases though, if someone has a nifty turn of phrase.

For Frank’s specific “post vitam” timeline event, the description will clarify that it’s the murder trial activities spanning several months.

To answer your questions @nkess …

1. In line with the above, it will be 20 citation “links” coming out of however-many newspaper sources.
2. Keep both facts … death, which is his actual passing event & the new fact / event to cover the murder trial

[kbens0n]

Glad you understood my premise, though I was thinking of it (framed in a simpler way) as “after the fact”. The Webster synonym being post-factum… my pretty “lumpy” characterization was the post-factum idea of being “retrospective”. I liked your idea a lot and just haven’t settled on how to incorporate it either, thanks!

[KimberlyGreen]

@kbens0n

Glad you understood my premise …

I believe my exact words, when I first saw your response was: “Of course! Brilliant!”

Even if the exact phrase is tweaked, your premise was like the door opening scene from Wizard of Oz.