* Handling Electoral Register Sources in FH

[dklbrooks]

Electoral registers are a good source for tracing how our ancestors moved about, especially between census's and after the 1911 census.
They provide the address/residence facts, but quite often the date is the only thing that changes from year to year.
So in the properties I put the residence as say Sunnyside farm, Hawksworth, Yorkshire from 1932-1945.
The Electoral Registers, 1840-1962 on Ancestry from 1931 - 1945 are the sources.
Should I have a source ("method 1") for each year, or one source referring to the Electoral Registers for all the years?

I want to store the image of the registers for each year because the page usually also refers to other people in the same village who may be of interest in the future.

I make use of the short title for sources to make handling many sources more manageable, and also use my own custom ID for individuals.
So I would name the source for the electoral register for West Yorkshire for Willie Davey as:

E1932-WD1896
E1933-WD1896
etc
each with an image of the page.
BUT - this scheme soon results in hundreds of sources, just for Electoral registers!

If there are other people of interest on that page (lots of Daveys in Hawksworth!)
I could just cite the above for WD1896 (like I do for Census's using head of household), or I could create ANOTHER source, eg E1932-ED1899.

I would be interested to know how other members handle this.

[tatewise]

The deciding factor is that you wish to link Media images to the Source records, and probably include a Text From Source transcript. In that case it is best to use Method 1 with a separate Source record for each Electoral Register page.

If you use Method 2 you would have to attach the Media and Text From Source to each Citation, and with several people in the same household, that would mean several duplicated Citations with the same Media and Text From Source.

Do not worry about the large numbers, as that is what FH and computers are good at handling. Just use logical record naming conventions and Source Type categories to assist with searching.

You do not worry about the large number of Individual or Family records, or the large number of Media records & files that will be same for both Method 1 and Method 2.

My project has more Source records than Individual records, with one per BMD Certificate, Baptism/Burial Record, Census household, Electoral Roll, Will & Testament, etc. Since each Individual usually cites several of each Source, then inevitably there will be more Sources than Individuals.

But if you are interested in large numbers, just think of the number of Citations or the number of Facts.
Use the standard All Facts query and see how many rows get listed!

[dklbrooks]

Thanks Mike.
I was tending to those recommendations myself, but it is good to have it confirmed.
I have been using Source Type since I started, and my naming conventions make filtering fairly easy (using short and long titles option).

I did not mean to sound so naive regarding Big Data!
I have worked in IT most of my life, mainly with Mainframes dealing with millions of records. I always coded with best efficiency in mind, given the machines of the 1970s were not as powerful as now, and storage and memory was at a premium.

I just wanted to make sure I was using FH in the most efficient way.
Even on the desktop I have noticed that as my database grows, the full backup is taking longer.

I still might "combine" some Electoral Register sources if nothing changes between years and use a date range in the FACT and the Citation.
For census's I tend to cite the Head of Household for all the other individuals on the page, except where the individual is not related to the HOH, eg when they are a boarder.

[tatewise]

That all sounds good.
The main reason the Full Backup takes longer is the increasing number of Media files, and perhaps 'stuff' in the Public folder. The Medium Backup will exclude the Public 'stuff'. The Small Backup of just the Gedcom is fast.

While talking about backups, those FH Project Backups do not save customisations of Diagrams, Reports, Queries, Plugins, Fact Types, Record Window Columns, Property Box Tabs, Tools Preferences, etc. So use the Backup and Restore Family Historian Settings Plugin as advised in glossary:backup_and_recovery|> Backup and Recovery.

Whilst exploring the capabilities of FH, similarly explore the capabilities and tutorials of ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources at the same time. You should be able to customise AS to match your preferred FH strategies.