African Family History Network

Tiny Tafels

In case you've never come across them before, Tiny Tafels are a way of indicating which families one is interested in. They can be read by human beings, but they can also be read by computers, and matched with other Tiny Tafels to find common interests.

The header gives information about the researcher and how to contact him or or her - name, address, phone and so on. The body gives information like this:

A536 1809*1822:ANDERSON\Whitehaven, CUL, England/Whitehaven, CUL, England

The A536 is a Soundex code, enabling computers to match names that sound alike, but which may be spelt differently. Then follow the earliest and latest birth dates for members of that family in the researcher's records. The * and : symbols have the following meanings:

* the researcher is very interested in this family
: the researcher is moderately interested
. the researcher is slightly interested

a blank after the date means the researcher not interested at all. The interest level symbol that follows the first date indicates how interested one is in finding out more about the ancestors in that line, and after the second date it shows how interested one is in finding out more about the descendants in that line.

The place names indicate the places of birth of the oldest and youngest persons in that line that the researcher has a record of. Sometimes the places are abbreviated - CUL in the example above means Cumberland.

Here, then, is a sample of a Tiny Tafel:

N Steve Hayes
A P.O. Box 7648
A Pretoria
A 0001 South Africa
T (012)333-6727
S 
S Fidonet: 5:7106/20
S FamilyNet: 8:7903/10
B Khanya BBS +27-12-333-0004
C 28//Zmodem
D 3/MSDOS/1440
F Family History System, PAF, others
R Searching for all GROWDON & GROWDEN
R families everywhere, and any STOOKE
R families in Devon, England
Z 62 Tiny Tafel Editor v2.2 --- This TT may be freely distributed!
A450 1756*1787*ALLEN\Winscombe, Somerset, ENG/Winscombe, Somerset, ENG
B230 1810*1810:BAGOT\Lancashire, England/Lancashire, England
B230 1892*1937*BAGOT\Natal, South Africa/England
B616 1790*1790*BARBER\Devon, England/Devon, England
C100 1838:1838*CHAFFEY\Bedminster, Bristol, ENG/Bedminster, Bristol, ENG
C560 1950 1954:CHAWNER\England/England
C150 1943 1970:COBBAN\South Africa/South Africa
C150 1703*1703:COPPIN\Cardinham, Cornwall, ENG/Cardinham, Cornwall, ENG
C350 1836*1920*COTTAM\Manchester, England/South Africa
C200 1740*1740:COUCH\Cardinham, Cornwall, ENG/Cardinham, Cornwall, ENG
D120 1896 1961:DAVIS\Newcastle, Natal, RSA/Durban, Natal, RSA
D620 1929 1964:DRAKE\South Africa/South Africa
D635 1943 1975:DRYDEN\South Africa/South Africa
D500 1913 1913:DUNN\Somerset, England/Avon, England
D600 1812*1812*DYER\Roche, Cornwall/Roche, Cornwall
G225 1948 1968:GASCOIGNE\Johannesburg, RSA/South Africa
G263 1935 1966:GAZZARD\Durban, South Africa/UNKNOWN
G650 1842*1941*GREENAWAY\St Teath, Cornwall/South Africa
G635 1800*1849*GROWDEN\Bodmin, Cornwall, ENG/Bodmin, CON, ENG
G635 1851*1989*GROWDON\Bodmin, CON, ENG/Durban, Natal, South Africa
H400 1954 1968:HALL\Estcourt, Natal, RSA/UNKNOWN
H550 1827*1965*HANNAN\Girvan, Ayrshire, SCT/Glasgow, Scotland
H620 1818*1818:HARRIS\Whitchurch, GLA, Wales/Whitchurch, GLA, Wales
H633 1861 1947:HART-DAVIS\At Sea, English Channel/Natal, South Africa
H200 1785*1981*HAYES\North Curry, SOM, ENG/Eshowe, KZN, South Africa
H616 1831*1831*HERBERT\Manchester, England/Manchester. England
H452 1821*1821*HOLLINS\Bristol, England/Bristol, England
H540 1543*1543:HONYWILL\Devon, England/Ashton, Devon, England
K000 1919 1975:KAY\South Africa/South Africa
L620 1905 1961:LARGE\Natal, South Africa/South Africa
L152 1820*1820:LIVINGSTON\Lanark, Scotland/Lanark, Scotland
L251 1684*1707:LUSCOMBE\Doddiscombsleigh, DEV, ENG/Devon, ENG
M635 1784*1864*MARTIN\Belfast, Ireland/Belfast, Ireland
M240 1938 1965:MAXWELL\Benoni, South Africa/Durban, South Africa
M263 1832*1832*MCCARTNEY\Maybole, Ayrshire, SCT/Maybole, Ayrshire, SCT
M233 1810*1810:MCDADE\Ayrshire, Scotland/Ayrshire, Scotland
M216 1820*1858:MCFARLANE\Glasgow, Scotland/Glasgow, Scotland
M620 1869 1974:MOORS\Bruton, SOM, ENG/South Africa
M430 1905:1905*MOULD\Transvaal, South Africa/Transvaal, South Africa
N550 1915 1930:NAUMANN\Dunedin, New Zealand/Dunedin, New Zealand
N363 1925 1929:NOTHARD\Durban, South Africa/Durban, South Africa
P620 1828*1828*PARK\Belfast, Ireland/Bath, SOM, England
P100 1833:1840*POPE\Tintagel, CON, ENG/Tintagel, CON, ENG
R000 1885 1973*RAW\Natal, South Africa/South Africa
R320 1949 1980:REDDICK\Salisbury, S. Rhodesia/Bellshill, Motherwell
S536 1730*1766*SANDERCOCK\Cardinham, CON, ENG/Cardinham, CON, ENG
S364 1635*1635:SATTERLEY\Trusham, DEV, England/Trusham, DEV, ENG
S536 1760:1973*SAUNDERCOCK\Cardinham, CON, ENG/Blacktown,NSW, AUS
S546 1598*1748*SMALLRIDGE\DEV, ENG/Doddiscombsleigh, Devon, England
S330 1950 1986:STAYT\Durban, South Africa/Durban, South Africa
S320 1592*1928*STOOKE\Devon, England/Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia
T400 1820*1820.TILLY\Cornwall, England/Cornwall, England
T455 1915:1989:TOULMIN\Bristol, England/Canada
V200 1742*1926*VAUSE\Epworth, Lincolnshire, ENG/Natal, South Africa
V650 1711*1726*VERRAN\Broadoak, Cornwall, ENG/Broadoak, Cornwall, ENG
V650 1707*1707:VERRON\Broadoak, Cornwall, ENG/Broadoak, Cornwall, ENG
W340 1930 1930:WHITLEY\South Africa/South Africa
W425 1917 1917:WILKINSON\Durban, South Africa/Durban, South Africa
W452 1830.1830:WILLIAMS\Winscombe, Somerset, ENG/Winscombe, SOM, ENG
W523 1927 1961:WINNICOTT\Eastern Cape, RSA/Pietermaritzburg, RSA
W521 1944 1959:WINSHIP\South Africa/Durban, Natal, South Africa
W300 1804*1804*WYATT\Lincolnshire, England/England
W 09 Sep 2000

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Why make a Tiny Tafel?

A Tiny Tafel is one of the easiest ways to let other people know what families you are researching. It is a compact representation of your own research. A person can glance at it quickly, and can see immediately if there is any possibility of their research overlapping with yours. If there is, the information in the header will show how that person may make contact with you - by letter, phone, or e-mail.

How do you make a Tiny Tafel?

It is possible to type your Tiny Tafel in a word processor, since it is simply an Ascii file. But that is the hard way to do it. Since it needs to be in a specific format, it is better to get another program that will do it for you.

Many genealogy programs have a built-in facility for exporting Tiny Tafels. You can also get a special Tiny Tafel editor, and either enter the data from scratch, or edit a Tiny Tafel (TT) created by another program. Even if your genealogy program can produce a Tiny Tafel, it is a good idea to edit it, because there will be some families that you are not really interested in (your seventh cousin's wifes brother, for example). Also, there may be some important information missing.

Programs for making Tiny Tafels

There are several programs you can use for making Tiny Tafels.

TTEDIT: The Tiny Tafel Editor by Christopher Long is a very good program for editing Tiny Tafels. If properly configured, it can import a Tiny Tafel, check the syntax, and make sure it is in the proper form for the matching programs. If you have a number of Tiny Tafels from other people, it will do the matching for you, and produce a matching report. It is available for downloading from most bulletin boards (BBSs) that have genealogy software.
TTGEN: The Tiny Tafel Generator, by Tom Douglas, is another program that will let you enter information into a Tiny Tafel, and edit an existing Tafel.
GED2TT: GED2TT, by Andy Kopenhaver, is a program that will creat a Tiny Tafel from the GEDCOM files produced by most genealogy programs. It allows you to select some names and omit others, but it is advisable to edit it with one of the editors listed above, as sometimes data can be missing.

Hints on drawing up a Tiny Tafel

Don't leave the date blank! - most matching systems will simply ignore entries that leave the dates blank. If you don't know the exact date, guess! This is not a record for posterity - it is simply to find a match, and you should be able to gues the century.
Don't forget the place! Most matching systems ignore entries with UNKNOWN or ALL in the place names, or with a blank. Even if you are doing a one-name study for an unusual name, put in a place name, even if it is only the country.
Don't forget the country! A lot of people in the USA seem to think everyone lives in the USA, and forget to put in the country, but that is often the most important indication for a match. One of the weaknesses of the Tiny Tafel system has been the lack of a thesaurus for place names. I suggest that the abbreviations used in the Genealogical Research Directory should be used as a standard. Some of the main ones are USA (not U.S.A.), ENG for England, SCT for Sctoland, WLS for Wales, IRL for Ireland, GER for Germany, NL for Netherland, FRA for France, AUS for Australia, NZ for New Zealand, RSA for South Africa (including pre-Union), CAN for Canada and so on.

Finding matches

Once you've drawn up a Tiny Tafel, what then? How do you find out if others are researching the same families?

The best way to do that is to submit it to the Tafel Matching System (TMS).

The Tafel Matching System is run on BBSs around the world. If you submit a TT to one of the BBSs on the system, it can be found by queries from other people, and you can submit your own queries.

If you send me your Tiny Tafel I will clean it up, and enter it into my own matching system, and let you know of any matches. You can send it by e-mail attachment.

If you need help

Tiny Tafels have a rigidly defined format. If they don't conform to the format, the computer matching software may not be able to use them. You should therefore try to use one of the editors listed above. If you are unable to get hold of one, but you have a tafel produced by your own genealogy program, I will try to help you.

If you take the crude Tafel produced by a genealogy program, you may edit it with an Ascii text editor or word processor. Be sure to save it as Ascii text, without formatting codes. Remove the lines containing surnames you don't want. Where dates or places are missing, put in guesses. A guess is better than nothing. If you don't know the town, but in the province. If you don't know the province, but in the country. If you don't know the country, put in the continent. If you are doing a one-name study and you are really interested in every instance of that name worldwide, list it as follows:

N550 0001*1996*NAUMANN\ALL/ALL

But if you do that with common names, those who run the Tafel Matching System are not likely to look kindly on your request. When you have done that, you may send it to me by E-mail: I will polish it up and pass it on to those who run the TMS. You may also e-mail me if you have any specific queries about the use of Tiny Tafels, but please read this document first!

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More about Tiny Tafels

South African genealogists have a bad habit of thinking that it is enough to know the surnames that other people are researching. Many people have asked for lists of these surnames to be published. But a surname, with no indication of date or place, is of little use to other researchers. It would be good to break this habit, and to start using a fuller format, like the Tiny Tafel one.

Many South African genealogists also do not have computers, but one of the projects that branches of the Genealogical Society could undertake would be the compiling of Tiny Tafels for their members. If those members who do have computers would be willing to enter Tiny Tafels for others, it would soon be possible to do realistic matching of research interests throughout the country.

If you would like to know more about Tiny Tafels, and more detailed information on how to draw them up and match them, You will find it at the Roots SF Web Site.

Who's looking for YOU?

Tiny Tafels can tell other people who you are looking for, but have you ever throught that someone in your family might be looking for you? There's a place to find out...

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Steve Hayes
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Created: 1996-08-30
Updated: 2004-07-13