Family Historian User Group

Hello everyone - I've searched for this problem in the boards but can't find anything appropriate to help. I've used FH for donkey's years but am just getting to grips with V6.0.2 which is looking brilliant. I have someone who is noted on his son's marriage certificate as "deceased". The date of the marriage was 29 June 1945 so I assumed that if I entered the death as "bef 29 Jun 1945" it would print out as such on a narrative report for ancestors of the son. Not so. It prints out only as "( -bef 1945)". I don't want it to say "to 29 June 1945" which is the only other option I can see. Could someone please point out my error to me as I am baffled! Many thanks, Jo

Hello Jo,

I have just tested this. In contexts where only the year is displayed, for example where the individual's life dates appear in brackets after their name, the date does appear as "( -bef 1945)" or "(1920-bef 1945)", but this is what I would expect. This applies where the life dates are in the heading of a report or where the individual is listed immediately after a number which refers to the section of the report in which their full details appear.

However the date appears correctly in the part of the report which gives their full details, for example "He died before 29 June 1945". Are you seeing the shortened form in the individual's own section of the report? If so check the narrative sentence in the individual's Property box for their death event. Have you manually edited the sentence in the past? Try clearing the sentence template and letting it revert to the default format.

Ah, I think I see what Jo is talking about. In the first sentence for the son it says something like:
"1. John SMITH, son of James SMITH ( -bef1945) and Janet JONES (1900-1950), was born..."

As Lorna says, that is the LifeDates format, so nothing can be done about that, and it has been thay way for many FH versions. The only option is to remove the phrase referring to the parents altogether, by in Report Options > General tab unticking Parents of Ancestors.

Later in the Narrative Report for James SMITH it should say he died "before 29 June 1945".

If you produce almost any Report with James SMITH as root person, or you look for him in the Records Window, his Lifedates always will be (and always were) ( -bef1945) assuming he has no Birth/Baptism/Christening Date.

Furthermore, the alternative of to 29 June 1945 displays in Lifedates as ( -to1945).

Thanks, Lorna and Mike. I see what you mean - the appearance of only the year doesn't matter too much when you're just looking at the son's data and a parent is described as (-bef1945) as you can then move on to the section which shows details about each parent. I guess I had never noticed this with previous versions and I'm scrutinising the V6 reports looking for changes. My problem is that the son was born in England but married a woman in Scotland and it's Scottish side of the family I want to produce the report on. I only have access to Scottish records in Edinburgh so, in this instance, the research does not go any further on the English side. As this will be the only reference to the parents in the whole report it seems a shame to apply the whole year rather than the accurate date. I will look for a suitable place to enter a note including the whole date, just for the sake of accuracy. I'm only just getting to grips with some of the changes, but I'm very impressed with some of the changes! Thanks again, Jo