Family Historian User Group

I am continuing to review / update my TMG data after import in to FH (using the GEDCOM inport as I have found that to be the most "complete" so far). As I find / resolve issues, I am re-importing from TMG so slowly I am getting there (I will wait for V6 before I undertake a final import)!

An issue I have found, and for which to date, I have found no solution, is where FH has placed the incoming data in a field that I don't want it in!. Taking, as a specific example, my Census Source records in TMG held all the data related to a specific census record, including the Registration District, Address, Pro Ref., Head of Household, etc.,(this ensured that I only had to change the data in one place if I found errors). The import has concatenated this data (and others) in to a single field (Source / Title).

From what I can see in FH, and after trying a Source record creation using Ancestral Sources, the Registration and Address data are held in FH within an Individuals Fact/Event record ("Census") in the Place and Address fields respectively, while the Pro Ref is held in the Source/Publication Information field.

I have looked at several "search / replace" type plugins as well as FH menu options and so far have been unable to find anything that would help me "split" the Source / Title field other than manually. Does such a beast exist?. Thanks (and apologies in advance if my field naming conventions are wrong, but hoefully you will get the drift of what I am trying to achieve!).

If I understand correctly, you have entered all the Census details into the TMG Source definition record title field, rather than use the <Date>, Location, Second Location, Supplemental tab, etc.

If you had used those details fields, then the TMG direct import, and possibly the GEDCOM import, would be able to do a better job. Certianly, the TMG Sample project imports the Abbreviation, title, Source type, <Date>, Location, Second Location, Supplemental tab, and Repository as would be expected.

Are your Census Sources linked to Individual Census Events, at least for the head of household? Possibly with Witnesses for the other household members. If so, then FH V6 direct import will make a better job of importing them.

As for splitting the FH Source Title into component parts, I don't think there is anything already existing to that. A custom Plugin could be written to do it, but only if you have adhered to strict conventions to separate Registration District, Address, Pro Ref., Head of Household, etc.

Thanks for the feedback Mike. I have though within Source Type definitions used separate fields (eg [HOUSEHOLD], [CENSUS ADDRESS], [REGISTRATION DISTRICT], etc) so each piece of data is stored / recorded separately within the source record. These Source Elements are in turn linked back to the Element Groups. The Source Title folows a simple "Head of Household Name - YYYY Census" convention

That said, and since writing the original entry here, I have delved further and can now see that it is TMG itself that has concatenated these in to a single line "1 TITL" within the Gedcom file it generated. Looks like I may have to play around with that file or hope that the FH Direct Import is more productive!.

To answer your final question, I do not use the Witness option for linking to Census Source records but instead have always used a separate Tag / Event on each Individual mentioned on the census return to link to the source record.

It sounds as if the data is well structured, and even if the direct import does not resolve everything, a custom Plugin probably will sort it out.

Your custom Census tag/event will become an FH custom Fact, but can easily be changed to a standard Census Event by using the Change Any Fact Tag Plugin.