* Multiple census entries

[MarinaGirlnin]

I know I can enter census information for either an individual or a family. However, I have an instance where a wife died in 1840 and the husband remarried in 1842, so in the 1841 census, it is him and 14 children. If I enter him as a family and then try to delete the wife's entry, that deletes it for everyone. The alternative seems to be to enter the father and the 14 children separately which will take a while. Is there a way around this please?

[jbtapscott]

I'm still new to FH and tinkering prior to importing from my TMG projects, but when I have been trying out Census entry in FH (without use of Ancestral Sources) , one option I have found (which pretty much mirrors what I did in TMG) is to create a Census Fact for the Father (with Source and all other Fact data completed) and then right Click / Copy on the Fact. You can then go to the individual children, right Click / Paste and a new Census Fact will be inserted.

I'm others more knowledgeable than me will point to other options.

[tatewise]

Yes, there are variations on that theme using the Copy and Paste buttons.
But remember to adjust the Age of each Individual.

You can also create the Source Record and then enable Automatic Source Citations while creating each Fact which will automtiaclly cite the chosen Source.

Alternatively, many FH users prefer to use ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources, and its associated Plugin, to capture events such as Census, Baptism, Marriage, Death, etc, in a much more convenient and consistent manner.

[MarinaGirlnin]

Thank you for the suggestion, which I shall try. I have to confess that I gave up on Ancestral Sources months ago. Maybe it is the way my brain is wired, but I just could not understand it at all!

[tatewise]

Did you work through the tutorials at ancestralsources:index#user_guide|> AS Tutorials?

BTW: The reason your Census (family) entry behaved as it did is because just like a Marriage Event it is attached to the Family Record not to two Individual Records. So when you delete it from one Spouse it is also deleted from the other.

[MarinaGirlnin]

I have made a New Year's resolution to give it another go

[JohnJ_au]

I'm also working through TMG import and AS for census records - my plan was to create a single source record attached to a fact for the Head of household (as principal) and then connect the other household residents as witnesses to this fact. That way the census data is stored in one place but I've also captured all the census participants.

What is the advantage to duplicating the source record for every participant? Any other advice?

TIA ... John

[NickWalker]

...my plan was to create a single source record attached to a fact for the Head of household (as principal) and then connect the other household residents as witnesses to this fact. That way the census data is stored in one place but I've also captured all the census participants.

What is the advantage to duplicating the source record for every participant?

Hi John

Obviously as the developer of Ancestral Sources (and before that Gedcom Census) I've spent a lot of time thinking about the recording of census data and the technical details of doing so. The first thing to remember is that the witness roles were only introduced in version 6 of Family Historian that was released this month and so it wasn't even technically possible for the version of AS you're using to support that method. Having said that I've spent a little time looking at witness roles (and the method you suggest) and I really don't see much/any advantages to it (though I'm happy to have my mind changed). My thoughts are listed below and refer to the use of the recommended 'method 1' in Ancestral Sources (single source per census entry).

1. A source record is not duplicated for every participant in AS. One source record is created and is linked to a census record for each individual via a citation. Even if you used witness roles you would ideally need to link this source to each witness (see point 6 below).
2. Witness roles don't include the age of the individual and I think this is important data. Only the age of the head of the household can be recorded. Therefore creating a separate census fact allows that data to be captured and presented in a consistent manner with the other facts.
3. The head of household isn't always someone who we would want to create a record for in the file - they may be a landlord, a captain of a ship, a manager of a workhouse, etc.
4. By recording census data using witness roles there is a danger of losing some census records if the 'head' was deleted from your file or not included in an export. e.g. you might export a portion of your file to pass to a relative and only include their side of the family - if a head of household was therefore excluded the census details of the rest of the household would disappear with them.
5. A census entry requires other facts to be created and so even if you did use witness roles for the census entry itself, you will still end up with multiple other facts linked to the source. A typical census entry will create occupation facts for various individuals, perhaps birth facts (as an estimated birth date can be derived from age and place of birth is recorded), sometimes religion or nationality. So why treat the census fact differently?
6. In Family Historian, it is easy to see the individuals linked to a census source by clicking on 'View->Record Links'. If you use witness roles then this only shows the 'head' unless you use citations to link each witness to the source too.
7. I can see that using witness roles for census entries could be seen as a quicker way to enter data than creating a census fact for each person but using Ancestral Sources already makes it so much quicker to enter census data that this is irrelevant.
8. Any additional data added to your file by using separate census facts will be very insignificantly small and not worth even thinking about. Even over thousands of entries it would probably be less than the size of a single jpeg image.

I think Witness roles are great for recording godparents at baptisms, witnesses at weddings, mourners at funerals, priests/vicars at baptisms/weddings/burials, etc. and the next version of Ancestral Sources (very soon) will support the use of witness roles for those purposes but not census records (but as I've said a convincing argument might persuade me to look again at this for a future version).

Cheers

Nick

[jimlad68]

Thanks Nick, a nice summary that goes nicely with section:
Creating a Census, Baptism, or Marriage Entry
at http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... ng_started
and http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... s_settings

As I've said before, for events with multiple people I am fully converted to Method 1 Sources rather than witnesses, it makes so much more sense to me as a source is the root of all detail. Apart from attributes like height, colour of eyes etc, most events in life are shared. It can be used as standard Gedcom and hence is also so much more portable, I just wish I had realised its advantage when using TMG, as even though TMG raved about Witnesses you could still use Method 1 Sources there too, indeed I suspect nearly all genealogy programs, I think the designers of Gedcom 5.5 did a pretty good job at the time. Why did FH introduce Witnesses? Was it just to keep up with the competition and because many genealogists ask for it, rather than being needed?

I use Method 2 Sourcing primarily as a quick entry method for things like GRO BMD events or where I need a quick generic source that I can go back to later.

You don't need to use Ancestral Sources for Method 1 and it does not apply to all sources anyway. I know Ancestral Sources can "seem" daunting, but it is one of those things you need to spend some time experimenting with to get it to your liking, but once set up, it should save much time and give much better detail and potential for cross reference.

[NickWalker]

Why did FH introduce Witnesses? Was it just to keep up with the competition and because many genealogists ask for it, rather than being needed?

As I said, I do think the witness roles work well for people who are associated with an event but are not the primary subject - godparents, marriage witnesses, best-man, etc.

[tatewise]

I agree with Nick. Witnesses are long overdue. It has always been difficult to record people associated with an event who are not a principal person. It either meant using Associated Person (which is not linked to any Fact), or creating custom Facts which are not very (ex)portable.

Witnesses are not perfect, because they are not (ex)portable, but are better than anything else. My Export Gedcom File Plugin does retain their details, albeit in a Note, but in a GEDCOM 5.5 compatible format.

However, I concur with Nick that they are not best suited to the principal people in a Census household, who should each have a Census Event with Age defined, and citing a common Source Record.