* Recording Research Notes in Family Historian

[CurtisB48]

Sorry if this is not the correct place to post my request for help. I am still a relatively newbe to Family History research and have the following questions:

1) I have tried to find books explaining what information should be kept in research logs and worked examples, has anybody found what I am looking for?

2) How and where in FH5 should this research information be kept?

Any information would be most welcome as I would like to keep this for the people in my tree to show how I knew that they were my ancestors.

Brian C

[Jane]

Part 2

Assuming you are already recording all your source information in sources and documenting the information in the notes against facts etc. The next option is to either use Named Lists or Research Facts to store additional information.

Have you read how_to:create_work_in_progress_or_research_to_do_lists|Create Work In Progress or Research To Do Lists?

[CurtisB48]

Jane

Thanks for your reply, I am recording all my facts and creating sources for them.

I had a quick look at "Create Work In Progress or Research To Do Lists" in the Knowledge Base and failed dismally when trying to create both the custom attribute and custom tab, this may be because I was very tired when trying this. I will have another look at this over the weekend to see where I went wrong. I did note that the instructions for creating the custom tab has this phrase "<Custom Item> (for advanced users)", as a new user of FH5 should I attempt this?

Brian C

[Jane]

As you have the details of what you need to put in the fields it's not too bad to do.

You can't do any harm as if what you put in is wrong FH won't let you accept it.

[tatewise]

Even as a new V5 user, customising the Property Box is unlikely to do any harm.
With the Customize Property Box window open, click the Help button.
Digest the advice given there, and by following the Edit Custom Item dialog link.

However, the first thing to do is create the To Do Custom Fact and ensure that it offers a solution to your needs.

I would like to keep this for the people in my tree to show how I knew that they were my ancestors.

The primary method for determining that people are your ancestors is through their Facts citing Source Documents that prove their lineage.
In particular the combination of Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates, together with Census Records should prove the family relationships beyond reasonable doubt, at least back as far as 1837 when GRO records began.
Earlier than that you must rely on Parish Church Registers and other less formal records.
To this can be added many other official records such as Wills, Probate, Electoral Rolls, Military Records, etc.

Perhaps you could give some examples of what research information beyond the above you thought might be relevant.

There is a research:index|: Genealogy Research section that may offer some useful advice.

[CurtisB48]

Jane

Thanks for your reply, I will let you know how I get on setting up the Custom Attribute & Custom Tab which I plan to do at the weekend.

Brian

[CurtisB48]

Mike

Thanks for your reply, I have looked at the Knowledge Base : Genealogy Research item and found that very helpful.

Before starting my family tree I borrowed some Genealogy books from my local library and they all stated that one must keep notes of all research done whether it was successful or not, it is the actual research I have carried out that I was referring to in my post. Before I bought FH5 I downloaded Roots Magic Essentials to trial, in the full version it has "Research Manager" for recording ones research and I assumed there would be the equivalent facility in FH5.

All my facts are linked to sources for all Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates that I have bought together with Census Records and Probate Records etc that I have found on Ancestry, Find My Past and scotlandspeople.gov.uk, etc. However, along the way I have tried unsuccessfully to find my Paternal Grandfather's birth certificate and despite buying a number of certificates that I thought were correct, these searches would fall into the "Unsuccessful searches"
it is these searches that I wish to record somewhere on FH5 along with those that were successful.

Assuming I am successful in creating both the Custom Attribute for the To Do List and the Custom Tab as described in "Create Work In Progress or Research To Do Lists" this will allow me to record future research and tasks to be completed.

I hope that my explanation is clear and provides the type of information requested.

Brian.

p.s

Just created the Custom Fact and will enter Birth into the "To Do:" box, with details in the Note box.

[Jane]

Another option if you want a full blown research tracking system is to look at:
Helen's GenQuery system:
http://www.fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4647


Personally I tend to use simple research notes in FH to track what searches I have done, but it really depends on the complexity of the research you need to do.

[tatewise]

To record your fruitless research I suggest a number of options.

(1) Use the Notes associated with each Fact. So in your Paternal Grandfather's birth case, log the fruitless Certificates in his Birth Event Notes.

(2) Custom Fact Research (similar to To Do) but recording fruitless research rather than research to be done.

(3) Cite fruitless Source Records that record the discarded research with appropriate Notes. e.g. your Paternal Grandfather's discarded Birth Certificates.

(4) You could even combine (2) and (3) by adding the fruitless citations to the fruitless Research Custom Fact.

[CurtisB48]

Hello Jane & Mike

Thank you both for your replies, all very helpful.

I have looked at GenQuiry and have decided to watch it's progress before making the move to download it, after reading all information on the website and forum it appears to be in the early stages of development.

I think creating simple research notes in FH as Jane does will suit me. I like Mike's idea of creating custom facts and fruitless source records. I will use all your suggestions to see which suite me best.

Thanks for all your help.

Brian

[CurtisB48]

Jane, Mike

I have followed the instructions in Create Work In Progress or Research To Do Lists and have a question regarding "Create Custom Column".

I would like to have all To Do items in a single column per page 3 of 4 as detailed here:

"However, the following Expression combines them all into one Column.
=Text(
TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,”Birth:”)=””,””,”Birth: ”) .
TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,”Baptism:”)=””,””,”Baptism: ”) .
TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,”Census:”)=””,””,”Census: ”)
)
Just keep adding similar . TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,”Label:”)=””,””,”Label: ”) expressions for each To Do Label:.

I entered the Expression as follows: =Text(TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,”Birth:”)=””,””,”Birth: ”) .TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,”Baptism:”)=””,””,”Baptism: ”) .)

I got an error message "Expression is not valid", I tried without the full stops and received the same error message.

Could you let me know how to enter the Expression so that my Birth, Baptism, Census, Marriage and Death To Do's are in a single column please. I have managed to create To Do's in their own columns but would prefer they were in a single column.

Apologies if I am having another Senior moment!

[PeterR]

The following expression is valid:

Code: Select all

=Text(TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,"Birth:")="","","Birth: ") .TextIf(GetLabelledText(%INDI._ATTR-TO_DO.NOTE2%,"Baptism:")="","","Baptism: ") )

Note that there should not be a full stop before the last parenthesis.

[tatewise]

I suspect the real culprit is the string quotes " character.
Unfortunately, the ” character used in the Knowledge Base is different from the one required in FH, so Copy & Paste does not work correctly.

Notice how the quotes in Brian's posting are slanted, whereas Peter's are upright.

I believe I have rectified the Knowledge Base page.
Would someone like to confirm that the Expressions with quotes will now Copy & Paste satisfactorily.

[CurtisB48]

Peter & Mike

Thanks for your replies.

I copied the Code from Peter's reply into FH5 and it works perfectly. I then copied the expressions within the ToDo by using Edit Column Details and changed the Label Names to Census pressed ok twice and then looked at the Individual Records and under the To Do column everything was recorded as expected. Following this success I did the same thing to give me Birth, Baptism, Census, Marriage & Death all neatly recorded against those persons that had a To Do for their records.

Mike's comments about the string quotes " character was correct, despite me using the character above the number 2 on my laptop this would not produce the " correctly. Unsure why this occurred on my laptop, however, by copying the Code from Peter's reply, although this is perhaps cheating has worked for me.

I am now creating To Do's for those that need it in my tree, as I commented previously elsewhere this software is so impressive when compared to what I used before buying Family Historian.

I wondered if there was a way of finding Family Historian users in Lincolnshire on this forum?

Best Regards

[tatewise]

Glad it is all working OK now.

Try asking in the General Forum for others in Lincolnshire.

[CurtisB48]

Jane

Further to your reply to me on 12 September, how do you record your simple research notes in FH to track what searches you have done?

For example my Grandfather married in 1922 and died in 1972, the GRO references for these facts are:

Marriage: Marylebone 1922 Sep Qtr, Vol 1a, Page 1619.

Death: Stoke Newington1972 Dec Qtr, Vol 05e, Page 427.

Any hep and advice would be appreciated.

Brian

[Jane]

My research notes vary quite a bit depending on the complexity. If there was only 1 possible for a person I simply record the information directly against the fact using a normal source citation. With Taubman's this happens quite a lot as it's a pretty rare name.

So for example my notes such as

William Albert Taubman

Marriage
Irish GRO searched 1881 to 1901 - Not Found
England/Wales GRO searched 1881 to 1901 - Not found

Census England and IOM
Ancestry Index 1891 Not Found
Find My Past Index 1891 Not Found

Other people have notes where I have had to decide which George and Mary Record are mine, with the alternate Census possibles, don't you love it when 3 of a man's sons name their first born George after their Father!

I also have ToDo: prefixed notes for items I need to look up, although I still tend to use Named lists for lists of things to do at specific record offices or items to do when I next swap from Ancestry to Find My Past

[Valkrider]

Further to what Jane does. I add the date when I searched the relevant site. I then revisit the site later and check to see if additional records have been added and then update the date checked reference.

[LornaCraig]

For example my Grandfather married in 1922 and died in 1972, the GRO references for these facts are:

Marriage: Marylebone 1922 Sep Qtr, Vol 1a, Page 1619.

Death: Stoke Newington1972 Dec Qtr, Vol 05e, Page 427.

In this case your searches have produced positive results (assuming you have no reason to think the index entries may refer to someone else with the same name) so I would simply create birth and death events for the years in question, if you have not already done so, and cite the GRO birth index and GRO death index as your Sources. Until such time as you order a birth or death certificate, if you do, the index is your source and should be recorded as such.
You can add the exact reference either in the Note in the Source pane of your grandfather's Property box or in the Note field of the birth/death event itself.

[CurtisB48]

Jane, Colin & Lorna

Thank you for your helpful replies.

Jane could you please explain what I have to do re "I also have ToDo: prefixed notes for items I need to look up"

Brian

[tatewise]

What Jane means is to enter such notes into a Note field (or any other multi-line long text field).
These notes should be prefixed with the label text To Do: so it looks like:

To Do: Research parish church marriage records.

The point is that there is a special function that can detect labels such as To Do: in long text fields, and extract the subsequent paragraph of text.
This can then be used in Queries to produce a To Do report.
The function is =GetLabelledText() which is documented in the FH Help under Using Family Historian > Advanced Topics > Understanding Functions > Functions (all) > GetLabelledText.

[CurtisB48]

Mike

Thank you for your reply, very helpful as usual.

I have had a quick look at "Using Family Historian > Advanced Topics > Understanding Functions > Functions (all) > GetLabelledText" as suggested and will be spending time over Christmas learning how to use this feature.

Brian

[tatewise]

The how_to:create_work_in_progress_or_research_to_do_lists|> Create Work In Progress or Research To Do Lists has some examples of its use.

[CurtisB48]

Thanks Mike

Success with To Do: Research achieved. Thank you I appreciate all your help.


Brian