Family Historian User Group

Is it possible to change the properties tabs?

I have very few Wills but do have quite a lot of Probate records, is it therefore possible to get rid of the Wills tab and replace it with Probate?

I am not quite sure what you are asking for, but yes the Property Box tabs can be highly customised.

The Wills tab is a customisation that I presume you downloaded from fhugdownloads:contents:property_box_tabs_military_census_wills|> Down Loads & Links > Property Box Tabs: Military & Census & Wills.
It includes a summary of not just the persons Will but also Letters of Administration, the Probate document, the Executors, and the Beneficiaries.
But remember it is simply a summary of the associated Fact details on the Facts tab.

I believe that if you have the Probate document then the Will is usually attached, so you should have both.

Could you please give a more precise description of what you want to change.

Mike

Thanks for the response so far. This is what I have at the moment.
What I want to do is to replace the Wills tab (or add another tab) that has the Probate Fact attached to the tab. This is rather than selecting Add a Fact and then scrolling down and selecting probate. I would just like a one-click to get the Probate fact tab up for data entry.

I have had no end of issues with the Wills tab not recording data properly as it seems to require all fields filled in.

Thanks

You can already create a Probate Event via the Wills tab.
Simply enter the Estate probated: Date and/or in Place and the Probate Event will be added. If you want, the Address and Note fields can be customised into the Wills tab too.
Use the Menu scroll & red tick icon near top right of Property Box and select Customize.
Click the Help button for advice, and post here if you get stuck.

Please be more specific about "no end of issues with the Wills tab not recording data properly".
It certainly should NOT need all fields filled in, since it only echoes the details of the Facts tab.
This is true of all tabs to the left of the Facts tab, that simply summarise the Facts.
All the fields on these tabs are just shortcuts to the Fact fields themselves.

Perhaps the problem is that you have not installed all the Fact Sets as per the fhugdownloads:contents:property_box_tabs_military_census_wills#installation_instructions|> Installation Instructions for the Wills tab.

No problem with the install at all it works as per the instructions.

If you enter admon and probate it only saves one or the other to the fact tab.

Back to the original question though how do I add it as its own tab?

This may not be relevant, but (in England) Letters of Administration are granted to an administrator if the deceased did not leave a will, and Probate is granted to an Executor if the deceased did leave a will. So you would not expect to see both: only one or the other. However I don't see why FH would not accept both.

To add a separate tab for Probate, tick the menu symbol in the toolbar at the top of the Property box and select Customize. Then select More Tab Tasks. You may have to untick Show most commonly-used items only to see Probate.

Thanks Lorna I will give that a go.

Given what you said about Admon and Probate the template for Probate does not reflect what is normally recorded then as some of the fields in Admon are appropriate to Probate too but aren't there.

Valkrider wrote: some of the fields in Admon are appropriate to Probate too but aren't there.

Probate is a standard fact whose sentence contains only Date, Place, Age (oddly!) and whose fields include Date, Place, Address and Note by default, but the Admon must be a custom fact in the Fact Set you downloaded. Perhaps you could customise the Probate fact to match.

Having carried out some tests, I am am certain you have NOT installed the Fact Sets needed for the Wills tab to work correctly as per the fhugdownloads:contents:property_box_tabs_military_census_wills#installation_instructions|> Installation Instructions:

Before installing the Property Box tabs you will need to add my Fact Set ~ Military History for Property Box Tab and Fact Set ~ Electoral Roll for Property Box Tab and Fact Set ~ Death & Burial for Property Box Tab, which should be downloaded and imported to Family Historian.

If you have NOT downloaded & installed those Fact Sets (especially Death & Burial) the problems are EXACTLY as you describe. Please follow those three links and install the three Fact Sets and your problems will be fixed.

To check, use Tools > Work with Fact Sets and click the Fact Sets... button.
The three Fact Sets should be listed as Military2 and Electoral Roll and Death_or_Burial1 as highlighted below but maybe not in that order: If after having double-checked ALL the above, you still want a Probate tab, then use the following:

• Use the Menu scroll & red tick icon near top right of Property Box and select Customize.
• Click More Tab Tasks > New Tab, enter the name Probate and click OK.
• At bottom left untick Show most commonly-use items only.
• Scroll down Available Items, select Probate and add > to Selected Items.
• Click OK.

Valkrider said:

Given what you said about Admon and Probate the template for Probate does not reflect what is normally recorded then as some of the fields in Admon are appropriate to Probate too but aren't there.

In the UK, it is my understanding that:

• If there is a Will then Executors obtain a Grant of Probate.
• If there is no Will then Administrators obtain Grant of Administration (Letters of Admin).
• Executors/Administrators then deal with the estate until Probate can be declared.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probate that makes it clear that either process can lead to Probate if the estate value is large enough.

tatewise wrote: In the UK, it is my understanding that:...

Unfortunately the terminology is/was different in Scotland.
(But maybe Scotland won't be part of the UK for much longer!)
See http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/conte ... ?r=554&407

Mike

You were right I hadn't installed the Burial. I now have and it has completely screwed the properties box. See below.
No only that in the Facts list I don't have the same as you this is what I have
However if I change the Fact set from all to Death or Burial 1 then I see this


Totally confused now.

Colin

If I go to the Probate tab these are the only input boxes that I get
Second update as only 3 images allowed per post.

Colin

You have not followed my instructions exactly, but "completely screwed the properties box" is an exaggeration.

It seems that not only have you installed the three Fact Sets, but also re-installed the the three Property Box Tabs.
So use the Property Box > Menu > Customize > More Tab Tasks > Delete Tab to remove the duplicated tabs.

You are using the Property Box > Facts tab Add Fact button.
I said to use FH main menu Tools > Work with Facts Sets > Fact Sets button.
But you can get there if you click More>> to reveal the Fact Sets button.

Regarding the Probate tab, you will notice that this is the same as the Probate fields in the Wills tab, so the Probate tab is redundant and can be deleted.

As I asked originally, what other fields do you want to see - I guess Address and Note.

Once you have sorted out the other problems above, I can advise how to add those fields if that is what you want.

Mike

Thanks for your continued help.

Now back to where I should be.

The fields I would like in the Probate Fact are

Date Probate Granted:
Location of Probate Office:
Date of death:
Deceased condition: (Spinster etc)
Address of deceased:
Late of:
Probate Granted to:
Address:
Relation to deceased:
Condition: (Spinster etc)
Effects:
Note:

Below is an example of a probate image that I would like to record
I have more examples if necessary

Thanks for helping with this.

Some of the facts to be inferred from the Probate Index will need to be recorded not against the deceased Individual, but against one or more other Individual records. This becomes obvious for cases where more than one Executor is named; the Property box for the deceased Individual cannot possibly achieve this necessary linking of data to other Individual records. A better approach may be to wait, albeit patiently, for a later version of the excellent Ancestral Sources, which will handle all these Probate facts and link them consistently to the appropriate Individual records.

PeterR wrote: A better approach may be to wait, albeit patiently, for a later version of the excellent Ancestral Sources, which will handle all these Probate facts and link them consistently to the appropriate Individual records.

Peter,

I agree that it would be great in Ancestral Sources and would like it there but I need this now. I am more that happy to use the copy Fact facility to copy it to another person in my database. It is a pity there is no way to create your own templates for Ancestral Sources.

My approach, pending the relevant new version of Ancestral Sources is to us the Custom Attributes Administrator and Will Executor (both from the Kinsfolk Fact Set), as appropriate for each relevant Individual, and to use the Standard Events Death and Probate and the Standard Attribute Residence for the deceased Individual. All of these many Facts cite the same Source record into which I transcribe the text from the Probate Index, and to which I link a Multimedia image record. Incidentally, it was this need to create Probate Source records that led me to write the Plugin Clone Any Record.

Peter is correct. All those details cannot be recorded on a Probate tab in the way you expected.
That is what the Wills tab is meant to achieve by summarising all the associated Facts.

Typically in any genealogy package, each genealogy Fact only records a few details such as:
Name of the Fact e.g. Birth, Marriage, Residence, Occupation, Census, Death, Probate
Age of the Individual
Date, Place, Address of the Fact
Value such as the name of the Occupation
Notes

Documents such as Birth, Marriage & Death Certificates and Census Returns provide many Facts, as I am sure you realise.
Similarly, a Probate document has many Facts that cannot all be recorded in one standard GEDCOM Probate Fact.
As Peter explained, you need to create a Source Record for the Probate document, with its transcript in the Text From Source field and an image attached via the Multimedia tab.
Then a variety of Facts such as Will, Death, Probate, Executor, Beneficiary, Value of Estate would be added to various Individuals and all would link to the Source Record via a Citation.
That is how genealogy packages are intended to be used.

That confirms that Gedcom is past its sell by date. Back to the drawing board.

You missed my early point, that ALL genealogy packages work that way, so it is nothing to do with GEDCOM.

I cannot understand how you have been recording your genealogy details up to now without associating documents with multiple Facts.

Mike

Looking at the Gedcom 5.51 standard the PROB is very limited in the data it can contain.

Without getting into an in depth discussion about the different ways we record data the data entry needs imho to be more structured and not just free text. This lack of structure is one of the failings of all current software. The other is that they are all person instead of event focussed.

Hopefully FHISO or STEMMA will deliver something where BetterGedcom failed.

What can I say?
It is not just the PROB fact but all Facts (Events/Attributes) that have the same structure I mentioned above.
i.e. Name, Date, Place, Address, Age, Cause, Note, Value, Media, Citation ... so not just free text.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy:

Genealogy (from Greek: γενεά genea, "generation"; and λόγος logos, "knowledge"), also known as family history, is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history.

Since it is about families, no wonder genealogy is person focussed, but facts play a big part.
Perhaps you are confusing facts with document sources.
Sources also have a structure: Title, Type, Author, Publication, Repository, Text, Note, Media, etc.

The trick is to use Citations to make the many-to-many linkage between Facts and Sources.

As you say all current software works that way, so maybe there is a reason for that?

What you appear to be asking for is an ability to define an ad hoc unstructured set of data fields that are different for each document, dependent on which country issued the document, but cannot be exchanged with others unless they happen to agree with your definition.

I doubt if FHISO or STEMMA will make radical changes in the way genealogy is recorded. There is so much established custom & practice that the primary database items of Person, Family, Fact, Document, Repository & Media will remain. They will probably add a Place/Address/Location database, improve the support for Media links & types, allow rich-text/word-processor style text, and offer more extensive relationships between data items, but don't hold your breath for much more.