* Records Window - Notes Links

[ronk]

A simple question with a 'yes' or 'no' answer (I hope). In the Records Window, Notes tab, all the notes are nicely displayed, along with how many times they've been linked. Is there a way within FH to know where or to what the Note is linked, similar to the Media tab?

Thanks,

Ron

FH 6.1.4

[BillH]

Ron,

Yes. Select the note you want and then go to the toolbar and select View > Record Links.... This will show you all the records that are linked to this note. The same thing works on the other tabs as well.

Bill

[tatewise]

That FH command will only tell you the record(s) to which the Note record is linked, but not exactly where. It also only allows one record to be inspected at a time.

The Where Used Record Links Plugin solves both problems, by allowing any number of Note records to be selected and lists exactly where each one is used. The Plugin works similarly for any type of record.

[ronk]

Fantastic! Thanks to both of you!

Ron

[CathyC]

Several years on I had the same query, for which I am grateful to you all for the answer. My only problem is - I seem to have 117 Notes in the Notes tab of the Records Window which have zero links. is there any way of finding out where these came from or to who/what they should belong? All advice gratefully received.

[tatewise]

That may need some detective work, and depends on how thorough your backups are, and how far back they go.

Some may simply be self-contained general notes that don't apply to any other records.

There may be some clues in the text of each Note to identify who it might belong to.

The Updated date/time stamp may be similar to the Updated date/time stamp of associated records.

If you have a good historical set of Backups, then restore them separately from your main Project, and hopefully you will discover when those Note records appeared, and what they were linked to.

It is possible that whatever they were linked to have been deleted, leaving the unlinked Note records behind.

If you imported from some other product(s) in the past, they may have instigated the Note records.

[CathyC]

Thanks for these suggestions, Mike.

Very few of the unlinked notes have an "updated" date at all & the 3 that do are from 2015.

Most of the entries seem to be addresses, so I am hoping I can find the owner by searching for the text.

The content is generally recognisable as coming from my earliest research, which was originally in Family Tree Maker, so perhaps the import came across as Notes? I think the conversion would have been in the 1990s.

All the other Notes in the Note tab of the Records Window only have one link each; would you still recommend the Clean Up Notes plugin & if so, what does it do, exactly (for the very non-technical, please)?

[tatewise]

The fact that the Note records have no Updated date does suggest they were imported, as if they had been created within FH then they would have been dated.

Yes, trying to match up the address data in the Note may be worth a shot.

For Note records with only 1 Link, the Clean Up Notes Plugin will move the text from the Note record to the local Note field of whatever it is linked to. So if it was linked to a Fact then the text will appear in the Note box associated with that Fact when viewed on the Facts tab. Alternatively, if it was linked to an Individual record then the text will appear in the Note box on the Main tab for that Individual. In both those cases the Note text should also appear in the Notes tab.

The Plugin also has an option to remove leading blank lines from the Note.

The Plugin optionally allows you to perform either or both of those operations.

To discover exactly what each such Note record is linked to (before using the Clean Up Notes Plugin), then select those Note records and run the Where Used Record Links Plugin and review its Result Set.

After running the Clean Up Notes Plugin you can use the Result Set from the Where Used Record Links Plugin to help locate the new local Note fields.
Also you can use Edit > Undo Plugin Changes to reverse the Clean Up Notes operations, but only if you don't close FH.