Family Historian User Group

In reply to Wilfreda99:-

a) The example I posted was a trial based on using a new attribute "PARENTAGE SPECULATED", but I have now switched to using a Birth Note. I'll attach a pdf using the new approach. (I have used capitals to try to ensue it stands out, even (possibly) when exported as a .ged file to some other genealogy program.)

b) Although I had a look at Ancestral Sources I decided not to use it as I am very suspicious of automatic updates. I would rather accept the tedium of entering things manually than to rely on some automatic process I didn't fully understand that updated a number of records in one go. My "system" is to add anything extra I think is relevant from census records, or BMD records, etc, as notes in square brackets, but I suspect I have not always been consistent here. I try to use images of the records themselves as I don't trust transcripts which can be inaccurate. (One occupation I found was transcribed as "Dianaforte Lunar" instead of "Pianoforte Tuner" !!) Also Scottish statutory records contain more information than those from England, including often the names and relationships of witnesses, informants, etc.

BillFraser wrote:...

b) Although I had a look at Ancestral Sources I decided not to use it as I am very suspicious of automatic updates. ...

Ancestral Sources is not an automatic update. You enter the data. Yes, AS puts it somewhere in a GEDCOM file, but so does Family Historian.

I agree with Adrian, above. When using AS, you have to select the Individual and Family records that will be updated (and AS provides useful information to simplify that selection process). You have to enter the relevant data, or confirm that data already held in FH (e.g. age, occupation, place of birth) is correct. AS enables you to achieve a level of consistency which cannot be guaranteed if many items of data have to re-keyed manually, including the linking of the Source record to all the relevant Events.

Maybe I used the wrong choice of words, and maybe (also) I don't really understand Ancestral Sources. But I didn't like the idea of its updating a number of records with one transaction. I preferred doing them one at a time, manually, but accept this could increase the chance of errors.

So Bill what is your take on Plugins that can update many records?

There are also plenty of FH transactions that can update multiple records. Do you avoid those too?

Many thanks Bill, I have now bitten the bullet and created a birth fact; I look forward to using it with some of the less definite records I have found.

I think I will revert to my previous practice of leaving out employment details from census data entered via AS - though I will make sure it is in the source text box so the source data is correct in FH. I will add the employment datail manually to the census record note as it is interesting to see how the names change over the years (it would be interesting to see how my own census occupation entries have changed - don't think I will live to find out).
Then I can add one or more employment attributes giving more information about career, where appropriate.

I find AS very useful as it means you only have to enter the data once (except as above), so reducing the chance of errors. The example of the wrong transcription that you gave would have been corrected by you in AS in the same way as doing it in FH.

I would recommend keeping the Occupation facts created by AS.
There is a Plugin that reports Occupations per Census year that needs those facts.
They are also a standard format for exporting.

You can still add the occupation by hand to the Census events and do your own thing with Sentence Templates.
If you don't like the Occupation sentence in Narrative reports then it can be excluded in the Options.

Mike, I am just noting what I do, I am not suggesting others should follow my example!! I don't use plugins (I am not even sure I know what they are). Yes, I guess I do use FH transactions that update multiple records, but you have to trust something. I did however run into problems when using FH to merge two databases - many of the suggested matches were invalid and it took me a long time to sort things out. At the time I wondered if I would not have been better off doing the merge manually, but decided on the FH merge as the lesser of two evils.

I am not suggesting that you embrace them wholeheartedly, but here are some ideas regarding AS and Plugins.

Firstly, before trusting them on your precious Project data, try them out on the Family Historian Sample Project.
If not sure what that is, then create it using File > Project Window > More Tasks > Samples > Reset Sample Project.

For AS try the ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources Tutorials that work on that FH Sample Project.
They illustrate how AS operates and what it changes in the FH Records and that you can easily undo those changes.

For Plugins see plugins:index|> Family Historian Plugins and try running some from the Plugin Store.
Many Plugins do not change FH Records but just create reports. Those that do change FH Records can easily be undone.

BTW: Are you aware of the fhugdownloads:index|> Downloads and Links?

If you do decide to use any of the above on your Project data, then just take a Backup before hand, then you have that to fall back on as well as the undo features mentioned above.

Only if I had a specific problem that I could not solve myself would I consider looking at "plugins" or asking for help. This was what I did for "speculative links" and this forum provided what is a good solution for me. As it happens I am wondering if I need to look into whether I could display the lives of a (selected) subset of my database in bar chart form - dates along the x axis and coloured bars running from a person's birth to his/her death. I have done this in a different context in the past using Excel, but it was very complex - thousands of cells and deeply nested @IF functions. I need to first work out what I really want however, and whether developing it would be worth the struggle.

You might find the Timeline Chart Plugin comes close.

You might try the Show Project Statistics Plugin, and I would be surpised if you did not discover anything interesting.

I use the In Progress flag which switches on a customised dotted box and a 'men at work' icon.