Family Historian User Group

Jane said: I am a bit lost as to the benefit of this over using one large gedcom file for anyone who is linked into the main tree in any way. I tend to use a lot of small files as a sort of 'workbook' to sort things out until I am sure what information actually belongs in the big file. If I want to...

I'm not quite sure how the FamilyLabs Standard Finder for names is supposed to work, but the place name finder is fabulous. Type in a place name and it will give you all the places in their database which have that name. Perhaps the name tab on the FL Standard Finder is more helpful for first name v...

SSL won't allow very many searches before it starts nagging you to donate, but it is an interesting program. It may also help to do a Google search for blog entries and articles on finding surname variants. There are several different problems -- 1) variant spellings written down by how the name sou...

Yes, it is a daunting task! You may be able to find software that can help. I found a shareware program to help with German surnames -- type in the name as you have it, and it generates possible spelling variants. Edited to add: this may be the one -- it looks as if he has added to the program and i...

Take a look sometime at Rob Noles' website for all the Knowles/Knoles/Noles families.

On his 'history of the name' page
http://www.kknfa.org/knowles_name.htm
he lists over 80 different spellings.

Jan

The pub example is funny! (And actually, that's the sort of example I had in mind when I started the thread.)

Jan

Just to clarify a point in my first post, when I said 'source records' I meant that in a general sense, not that the items would be 'Sources' in the FH Source List. What I would do is make a record for each item as a Multimedia Object and then if Source records are needed, attach the Multimedia Obje...

As I collect census records, I'm finding several families where the household consists of parents, their married daughter, and grandchildren. The daughter is listed as 'married' not 'widowed' and so I wonder -- where was her husband on census day? Since I grew up in a Navy town, one obvious answer m...

duncan_a said: In typing the last paragraph I think I have just realised that the ‘location’ is simply another field within the record of the acquisition number and, therefore, you have answered the question… I was basing my thinking on something like the Dewey System used to reference library book...

I thought this might be useful (or amusing) to post this for comparison. I don't keep everyone in one big file -- I prefer to have separate files for different lines -- so my largest GEDCOM file is 1,920KB at the moment (303 people, around 200 sources, less than 150 notes, minimal repository informa...

Nick, I wonder if this might be the message which offers a user the option to cancel loading a file which you mentioned in your email to the testers on 1 Mar 2008. You said you had changed the time after which it appears to 3 seconds from 2 seconds and that 'it shouldn’t even be seen by those with f...

Using 3.1.2 with Win98SE. I've never seen this error.

When did 3.2 come out?

Jan

Have you seen the Crew List Index Project (CLIP)? http://www.crewlist.org.uk/ CLIP was set up to improve access to the records of British merchant seafarers of the late 19th century and has gathered the largest database of entries from crew lists. This site gives information about * what crew lists ...

I am sorry your health is not good. It must be frustrating to want to do this task and not have the energy to accomplish what you want to do. I found a website for the British Library Centre for Conservation that may be of interest: Caring for your treasures http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/whatson/bl...

Did they not install properly, I wonder? Try this: 1) open Family Historian 2) choose an individual 3) right-click and choose 'Properties' to pop up the data-entry box 4) go to the events tab 5) hit the + button You should see the facts and be able to choose them as needed. If not, please tell us wh...

I use 'estimated' for dates that are flat-out guesses. If it involves a sorta-kinda rule of thumb, like assuming someone was born around 20 years before child #1 is born, that's an estimate. I use 'calculated' for all birth years and other dates which are (or might have been) back-calculated from ac...

Are you sure you are looking at the correct set of census records? In my husband's family, I have a Robert who has sons named Robert and Thomas -- who have sons named Robert and Thomas -- you can see where this all could lead. If I took all the census records I have found so far for his family, pull...

If you use one source for the entire collection of records as suggested above, you can use 'where within source' to note which bit of information came from which document.

Jan

Just wanted to post a follow-up in case anyone can advise me of new records coming online in the UK. I found in the US Passport Applications a record for a woman who may be my husband's great-aunt Edith. In the passport application it says she planned to leave 'about March 15th 1919' for England to ...

ChrisBowyer said: Multiple birth records seems a strange idea to me... A person is born once; what you have is multiple, possibly conflicting, references to that event, which surely belong in notes, sources, text from source, etc., with the birth event itself being your aggregate opinion as to the ...

I think it is important to remember that we don't always know who reported the data to the census-taker. People often say 'so and so lied to the census taker' but we can't know who told them that age. For all we know, someone told the census taker 'he was born in 19xx' and the age was calculated fro...

Chris -- I thought we were discussing, not arguing. No hard feelings here! Yes, we do have different perspectives, and this is one of the things I enjoy most about having this forum for discussion. IMHO, it is useful to have everyone say 'I do it this way because...' Whether the person who asked the...

One of my instructors used to question any hypothesis we made with 'what does it buy you?' He wanted us to go straight to the essence of our proposed theory and articulate what advantage it made if we put it in that form. Paper records are sequential, like a videotape. Computer records can be access...

A quick comment on what Nick said: There are some UK census years for which I do not have images yet, and I only have data from FreeBMD. I'm embarrassed to say that it took me quite some time before I figured out I could copy the information from FreeBMD's transcription and paste it directly into th...

ChrisBowyer said: jmurphy said: you should record... Never forget you're doing this for fun... you don't have to record anything, you can do whatever suits you. But more seriously, I try to avoid transcribing anything I don't have to. Every transcription introduces errors. If you ever need to refer...