DVD Individual Summary Omits Birth

GordonH · Post by **GordonH** » 30 Dec 2012 11:26

When looking at the Facts tab for an individual I can see listed within it birth events for each of that individuals children.

However, when I publish a DVD using the Individual Summary Report (for Web, CD, or DVD) option these birth events do not appear in the Individual Events and Attributes section of that individuals summary report on the DVD. I have been unable to find out why this should be.

I have checked the Birth Fact Definition to make sure the Hidden box is not checked.

With regard to DVD creation I selected as the Primary Page Type Individual Summary Report (for Web, CD, or DVD). In the DVD Report Option Contents tab all sections are checked as are the All buttons for the Individual Events/Attributes and Marriage Events/Attributes.

Is there a way to make these Birth events appear in the Individual Events and Attributes section of that individuals summary report on DVD?

ID:6671

Post by **tatewise** » 30 Dec 2012 12:01

Those Child Birth Events do not appear by default in any Reports under the Parents Events, because they are NOT Parent Individual Events, but do appear under the Marriage details of Individual Summary Reports including (for Web, CD or DVD).
The same is true for Family Events such as Marriage and Divorce that appear on the Facts tab, but only under Marriage details of Individual Summary Reports.

However, they can be added as follows.
Use the Report Options > Contents tab, and Add to Main Section Items.
e.g.
Label: Child 1
Expression: %INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[1]>NAME[1]%, %INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[1]>BIRT[1]%

Label: Child 2
Expression: %INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[2]>NAME[1]%, %INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[2]>BIRT[1]%

You may find the following of interest:
Wish List 60: Ability to show deaths/marriages of close relations on the Events Tab
Share Facts across family.
Both of which raise the question of whether such Facts should also appear in the same context in Reports and on Diagrams for the Individual.

GordonH · Post by **GordonH** » 30 Dec 2012 14:36

Many thanks for the quick response. I followed your suggestions and they certainly display some of the child birth information in Main Section Items. Unfortunately this results in a certain amount of duplication in that section unless I set the Children label to Hide, but if I set that to hide I then lose the year of the child's death. I dare say that could be re-introduced by editing the expression (or adding another) to include it.

However the solution I was hoping for was for the child birth event to appear in the parents Individual Events and Attributes section of the DVD Individual Summary just as it does in the Facts tab of the individual parent's properties. I would certainly argue that child birth is an important individual parent event - just ask the mother!

Maybe there is some technical genealogical reason why a child birth event should not be considered a parent individual event, but if so, why should child birth events actually appear on the FH Facts tab for the individual parent? I feel that the Individual Properties Facts tab as currently displayed in FH is a true expression the individual events and attributes and that the DVD creation option should just reproduce them as listed unless overridden by specific DVD creation Contents options.

If this is not possible with FH as it currently stands should this not be the subject of a wish list request (unless its already requested)?

GordonH · Post by **GordonH** » 30 Dec 2012 14:42

Thanks too for the link to Wish List 60 which I'm just reading now.

PeterR · Post by **PeterR** » 30 Dec 2012 16:05

GordonH said:
Maybe there is some technical genealogical reason why a child birth event should not be considered a parent individual event, but if so, why should child birth events actually appear on the FH Facts tab for the individual parent?

The event that is being recorded is that of the (child) Individual being born, not the fact that the (mother) Individual gave birth.

The Facts tab for an Individual shows Individual Facts indicated by a blue dot and Family Facts indicated by a red dot. In addition, if the Facts tab menu option Show Birth/Adoption of Children is ticked, then such Child Events are also shown, indicated by a pale grey dot, but only if there is a Date recorded.

Thus if you want your report to show all children, you don't actually want to replicate the behaviour of the Facts tab, since this would omit children for whom there is no recorded date of birth or adoption.

GordonH · Post by **GordonH** » 30 Dec 2012 16:56

Thanks for clarifying that Peter, that was helpful. Having read the links Mike gave me and the points you made this is clearly a much wider and more complex topic than I had envisaged when I made my post.

I still feel that its important that child births be recorded in their parents list of events and attributes on FH DVDs. However, I see from others comments that other types of event sharing has been proposed and discussed at Wish List 60. I need to ponder this a bit more but I'm inclined towards Mike's thoughts on the subject as expressed in the Share Facts Across Family link he gave above.

Post by **tatewise** » 31 Dec 2012 10:25

There is a growing demand for all the Facts on the Property Box Facts tab to be included in the Individual Events and Attributes section of Reports.
However, as you have mentioned, this would result in duplication in Individual Summary Reports under the Marriage section, for Marriage, Divorce, and Children facts.

A workaround is for you to create a Custom Fact called say Born, that must be added to both Parents for each Child.
The Born Fact would duplicate all the details in the child Birth Fact for every Child.
This could be automated with a Plugin.

GordonH · Post by **GordonH** » 31 Dec 2012 13:43

I like your idea of introducing a Custom Fact to achieve the outcome I want.

The only snag being the amount of work involved without a plugin to automate the process. I've not yet looked at what's involved in writing plugins but will do so. I used to write software for mainframe computers in Assembler, Cobol and Fortran - but I know the world has moved on!

I'm assuming that such a plugin could work along the following lines (after the new custom fact has been created);

1) The plugin would be told the Fact that was to be duplicated (e.g. Birth) and the name of the Custom Fact to which the Birth details were to be duplicated (e.g. Child Born).

It is possible that a child could be born, for example, after the fathers death, therefore the custom fact Child Born would need to be permitted to exist both before and after the death of a parent.

How to handle the birth of child for whom the date of birth is completely unknown needs to be resolved somehow.

2) The Plugin would then be run and it would duplicate every Birth fact as a Child Born fact into each of the respective parents facts, unless a Child Born fact for that child already existed in the parents facts from a previous run of the plugin.

I can imagine problems arising in the event of the date of birth of a child being changed after Child Born facts have been created by the plugin that might require manual intervention to fix. Such a situation might be better handled if FH itself were upgraded to meet this need, I would imagine it could maintain links between the original and duplicated fact to deal with changes to the original.

If FH were enhanced to do something like this as an option in future then I assume it just be a case of either A) staying with the Plugin option, or B) deleting the custom Child Born fact from the facts set and switching on the new FH option.

I suppose a plugin like this (or a variation of it) could be used for purposes other than duplicating Birth Facts, it could say duplicate Death Facts for parents into the facts of surviving children.

Apologies for rambling on, I'm just thinking aloud about how this might work.

Post by **tatewise** » 31 Dec 2012 14:19

Yes, Gordon you clearly understand the basic concepts.
Certainly the concept could be extended to support a range of popular Events.

It is not essential for the Custom Fact to exist before running the Plugin, as the fhGetFactTag function can generate a custom TAG.
But for Narrative Report Sentence Templates and Normal Time Frame checks to work satisfactorily, then a Custom Fact must be defined.
The Plugin could even create a Fact Set (.fhf) file to be Imported for the supported Events.

Setting Normal Time Frame to None should allow any Date before or after Parent's Death.

Regarding missing Birth Date, the Plugin could insert a Between Date Range based on the Parent's Birth and Death Dates.
Otherwise, blank Date Events simply appear last in the Facts tab list (within their Normal Time Frame).

To avoid duplicating Custom Facts the Record Id of the Child could be added by the Plugin.
A good place to store it is in a Source Note linked to the Fact.
This is a rarely used feature of the GEDCOM structure, and so unlikely to conflict with any data copied from the Birth Event.
See All tab, right-click any Event and Add Source > Add Source Note to this Record.

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