Family Historian User Group

Could somebody please explain why the Marriage source is the first to be recorded in Family Group Sheets? I have looked through the forum but could not find an answer.

I was expecting the sources to run in chronological order starting with the Birth source, which is the method used in both Family Tree Maker & RootsMagic.

Brian

The sources are numbered according to the order the associated facts appear in the Family Group Sheet. The marriage is shown in the section at the top so has source number 1. If you read down the sheet you will see that the reference numbers for the sources proceed in ascending order, until you reach a fact which has a source identical to one already cited, in which case the number previously assigned to it is used. Think of it in the same way as footnotes in a book.

I have noticed a similar problem where a report has multiple individuals with say many censuses, they are often out often of date order. A partial fix for this is to order the census sources for say a birth record in date order. It seems to take the order the sources are listed, which in one respect is logical, and of course a source has no date, so how else could they be sorted, other than say alphabetically or by Custom Id. Some flexibility might be nice, but the current system is very logical.

Lorna

Thanks for your reply, however, you have not answered why the Marriage fact source is given the number 1 in Family Group Sheets, which is at odds with other genealogy software I have used/looked at. Have the creators of Family Historian chosen to make their software perform in this way?.

Jim

All my Marriage facts have been created after the birth/baptism facts entered, and as a matter of routine I double check that all facts are in date order. The only people that have Census facts in their birth source are those that I have not been able to find their birth/baptism details, therefore, I don't think your advice will apply here?

Having looked at a number of Family Group Sheets in my tree they all record Marriage as source number 1 and 2 (1 Marriage Certificate, 2 Marriage Index), followed by 3 (Birth Certificate), 4 (Birth Index).

The reason I asked the question is that I have filed my paperwork in logical order of birth, census, census, marriage, more census, death, probate (this is just an example).

I look forward to any other comments, including "it's the way the programme works".

Brian

Sources are numbered in the order they occur on the report. On a Family Group sheet the marriage is the first fact shown.

CurtisB48 wrote:
Thanks for your reply, however, you have not answered why the Marriage fact source is given the number 1 in Family Group Sheets, which is at odds with other genealogy software I have used/looked at. Have the creators of Family Historian chosen to make their software perform in this way?.

I did explain that it's because the sources are numbered according to the order the associated facts appear in the Family Group Sheet.

The Sources are numbered in the same way you would find footnotes numbered in a book, in an order corresponding to the text. Yes, that is the way the software is designed.

Perhaps you are not aware that if you produce a different type of report the sources will be numbered differently. For example in an Individual Summary Report the source for the birth will almost certainly be number 1, because the birth is the first fact itemised in the report. Sources do not have fixed numbering in FH (other than their Record ID numbers).

Considering that it is a Family Group Sheet, it is focussed on the Family record for the couple, rather than all the Individuals.

So it is not unreasonable that the Marriage, and other Family Events such as Engagement and Divorce, are listed first and thus their Sources listed first.

If Birth/Baptism Sources were listed first, whose would you expect? The Husband, or the Wife, or both?

It seems sensible to list the Family Events that affect the couple first, followed by the Individual Events for the Husband, then the Wife, and finally the Children. Thus the Sources are in a similar order. Otherwise, how would you arrange the order of the Sources, as they can only be listed once, and thus cannot be repeated amongst every Individual's event Sources. Family Historian simply choses to do it that way.

Hello Jane, Laura & Mike

Thank you for your replies, clearly I have been mislead by comparing other family tree software to my Family Historian software, please accept my apologies for raising this as a query, and for the helpful explanations received from you all. Having not used Family Historian for while I had not realised it was how it was designed to work and thought I may have done something wrong.

Brian

you don't ask, you don't learn, and besides, the answers will probably help others understand too.

Jim,

Thanks for your comments, very much appreciated.

Brian