* Possible bug in the Source section of reports.

[Stephen]

Hello,

I have been experimenting with the fH Sample file and the reports (Individual Summary Report and Descendants by Generation specifically) in order to examine the format and component parts of the sources that are printed on them.

Initially, on both reports, (and I assume it is the same for the other reports) the option on the Sources tab on the Report Options window are set the same in all aspects.

I have worked my way through this screen by unchecking all boxes to identify exactly which part of the source is affected and I believe there may be a bug.

Specifically, in the section Include Repository Information is a check box labelled Media Type (book, fiche, etc) which I believe contains the information entered into the Type field in the Source Pane. Now, when this box (Media Type ... ) is checked, the data contained in the Type field is not being displayed anywhere in the report.

I have gone so far as to uncheck all boxes (except the four at the very top of the window) to see where this information is displayed only to find that it does not show anywhere on the report.

I also believe that the checkbox Media Type (book...) should be included within the section labelled Source Citation Information to Include.

However, if am I wrong, I then need help to get the Media Type info to display and would be grateful for any advice on this matter.

[tatewise]

Hi Stephen,
It is not actually a bug, but I can understand why you think it is.

The Media Type (book, fiche, etc) option is NOT referring to the Source record Type field.

If you click on the [...] button to the right of that Type field it opens the List of Source Types dialogue.
That dialogue is also accessed via Tools > Work with Data > Source Types.
So that is all about Source Types not Media Types.
BTW: That Source Type field cannot be included in the Report.

The Media Type is a rarely used field that I think is to do with the LDS Family Search resources.
In the default configuration it is accessed via the All tab of Source Property Box (or the Records Window).
e.g.
With a Repository linked to the Source, right click on the word Repository and select Add Identification.
In that field you are meant to enter the LDS document Call Number, but anything will do as long as it is not left empty.
Now right click on the Identification field and select Add Media Type.
In that field you can only choose values from the drop-list such as book, fiche, newspaper, etc.

Now that Identification Call Number is reported if the Repository Id for Source option is ticked.
Then that Media Type value is also reported when the Media Type (book, fiche, etc) option is also ticked.

[Stephen]

Hell Mike and thankyou for your prompt reply.

I was unaware of this and have made a very bad assumption which now opens another query concerned with the same topic, and that is; How do you get the Type information from the Source Pane to display in the source; I cannot find anywhere in the Report Options > Sources tab to check. Therefore, perhaps a checkbox needs to be included in the Source Citation Information to Include section.

My reason for suggesting this is that I would prefer to lump my sources rather that have a separate source for each and every record I locate. eg.
NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Birth Certificate as the source and 1959/799 S.J. Parrott etc as the citation.

Regards
Stephen

Sorry,
Just re-read your post and saw the line that states that the Type can't be included in the source. However, perhaps the addition of a checkbox for the Type could be added to a wish list.

Again my thanks

[tatewise]

There are a few points there that need to be clarified.

The decision to use Method 1 'splitter' Source Citations versus Method 2 'lumper' Source Citations needs careful consideration as they have quite different characteristics. Both Methods have their role, even in one Project, but you need to understand their pros and cons. Have you read and experimented with glossary:sources#sources_and_citations_-_how_to_use_them|> Sources and Citations - how to use them?

A key factor is whether you intend to include Text From Source transcripts and Media document images with your Sources. These are typically BMD Certificates and Census records. For those types of Sources it is advisable to use Method 1, otherwise you will find the same Text From Source and Media being tediously repeated in every Citation, especially for Census records where every member of the household will have the same Citation, but also for most BMD Certificates that result in Citations for the child, and the parents name, address & occupation.

It is not clear how you intend to use the Source Type field. Its purpose is to aid sorting and searching Source records. It is meant to categorise the broad class of Source Type such as Birth Certificate, Census, Passport, Verbal Interview, etc. In the Family Historian Sample Project see the Tools > Work with Data > Source Types list for examples.

Finally it is not clear to me why being able to include Source Type in Reports helps with Method 2 'lumper' Source Citations. Perhaps you could explain how you hoped to use the Source Type field.

[Stephen]

Hello Mike,

I hope this clarifies my reasoning and would welcome any feedback.

In the fH Sample project I entered the following Source:

Source pane:
Title: Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages - New South Wales
Type: Birth Certificate
Short Title: BDM - NSW
Author: Department of Justice and Attorney General NSW
Cust ID:
Publication Information: Sydney, NSW: n.p., n.d.
Repository: New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages
Text from Source: eg. On 01 March 1856 an act was passed for registering births, deaths and marriages. This act established a number of District Registrars responsible for the compulsory registration of all births, deaths and marriages occuring in NSW.
Note:

Citation pane:
Entry date: 1959
Assessment: Primary evidence
Where within Source: 000799/1959 Entry for Stephen John Parrott
Text from Source: eg. transcript of certificate
Note:

Using the above information, this is how the source reads on the narrative descendant report using the default program settings on the Report Options > Sources tab;

2. Department of Justice and Attorney General New South Wales, "Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages - New South Wales" (Sydney, NSW: n.p., n.d.). 000799/1959 Entry for Stephen John Parrott. Cit. Date: 1959. Assessment: Primary evidence.
Text from Source: Transcript of certificate
New South Wales Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages.

As you can see, what is lacking is the type of document being cited, ie. a birth certificate. As it is now, it could be a birth, death or marriage certificate and the only way to ascertain which, is to go back to the Sources Pane and see what it is, hence my belief in the need to include the Type in the source.

I have read Knowledge Base > Sources and Citations - how to use them and understand your concern about repeated data. However, as you are aware, "Text From Source and Media being repeated in every Citation" only manifests itself if the checkboxes Text from Source in the Sources Information to Include and the Text from Source box in the Source Citation Information to Include area are checked. Personally, I do not see a need to check these boxes as the text or image of a source is not really required; just a description of where the information was found.

So, for those who adopt Method 2 'lumper' Source Citations, I believe it is necessary for the Type to be included as a checkbox option so that a source generated in reports, and based on the above information for example, could read:

2. Department of Justice and Attorney General New South Wales, "Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages - New South Wales" (Sydney, NSW: n.p., n.d.). Birth Certificate 000799/1959 Entry for Stephen John Parrott. Cit. Date: 1959. Assessment: Primary evidence.
[Text from Source: Transcript of certificate (can be omitted by unchecking box)]
New South Wales Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages.

Regards
Stephen

[arthurk]

Hi Stephen

I suspect you may receive more technical advice, but I think I do more source lumping than many others, and I do have quite a lot of sympathy with that approach. However, it's necessary to be clear about exactly what belongs where.

BMD certificates is actually one area where I change to splitting sources, on the grounds that each piece of paper can be viewed as a source in its own right.

In the example you give, the title you've given to your Source is Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages - New South Wales. However, that's not a birth certificate, it's a government department, and the same title would apply whether you're referring to Births, Marriages or Deaths.

In your example, the point at which you specify that it's a birth certificate is in the Citation, so from what I can see, that's where you need to mention it. Where within Source would be the obvious place, perhaps changing Entry to Birth Entry or Birth Certificate, depending on the usual terminology in an Australian context; otherwise perhaps some kind of note or explanation in Text from Source?

Going back to my way of doing things, if I only have information from an index then I do lump them under the name of the index (GRO, FreeBMD etc), and put the reference in the Where within Source field. I don't actually enter the word Birth, Marriage or Death there, since generally I only attach the citation to the event it refers to, but I can see that if I was starting out again, it might be better to do so.

As it is, in a few cases I have taken an age in a death index as a source for an approximate date of birth, and then I've dealt with it by putting something like "(Death registration - age 31)" in the Text from Source field.

This approach may not be the most "correct", but it seems to work for me.

[tatewise]

Sorry Stephen, but that just doesn't work, partly as explained by arthurk, and expanded by me below.
You may need to repeat the exercise with a number of different types of certificate to fully understand the issues.

I presume that you intend to cite that one Source record for every Birth, Death & Marriage Certificate?
That is implied by its Title.
OR
Are you proposing three Source records, all with identical Title, Short Title, Author, etc, and only differing in their Type fields?
Please clarify this point.

Also, much of what you have recorded in the Source record might be better in the Repository record.

The solution is to have three Source records with different Titles and Short Titles where one only mentions Births, another only Marriages, and the third only Deaths, or use the arthurk idea, but then the Type field is not significant.

However, since you clearly intend to capture Text From Source transcripts, I advise you use Method 1. You will find numerous users, who having migrated into FH are reworking some of their Source Citations from Method 2 to Method 1 for all the reasons I have given; arthurk is just one.

You misunderstand about repeated Citation details.
We are not talking about in the Reports, but in the GEDCOM database itself.
For example, it would be usual to cite the same Birth Certificate details not just against the person's Birth Event, but also against the parents named on the Certificate for their Name, Address & Occupation facts. So the same Citation pane details as you illustrated (perhaps with an attached image) would be entered for each of those several Citations.
It gets worse for a Census record with say 8 people in the household, each with an Occupation. That would need a Census Event and an Occupation fact for all 8 people, and each of those 16 Citations would all need the same repeated data.

If you don't ensure those multiple Citations are identical for all the facts that may appear in one Report, then you will still get multiple entries in the Sources section regardless of the tick Options chosen. Especially considering say a Descendants report where several generations and siblings all appear in the same Census.

[Stephen]

Hello Mike and arthurk,

It WAS my intention of having three Source records, all with identical Title, Short Title, Author, etc, and only differing in their Type fields.

However, I have just spent the last half hour or so inspecting the Source records in the Sample Project and I think the penny has dropped regarding the splitting of sources. I see now that by using Method 1 you need amend the Source only once for the change to be reflected in all uses of that Source.

Again, thanks for taking the time to steer me in the right direction.

[arthurk]

You will find numerous users, who having migrated into FH are reworking some of their Source Citations from Method 2 to Method 1 for all the reasons I have given; arthurk is just one.

I don't know about other people, but actually I'm not reworking my sources into Method 1, largely because my way of doing things up to now hasn't made it particularly essential.

From long before I started using FH, I've felt that each BMD certificate was a discrete source, in a way that a Census entry or a Parish Register entry was not. This may be because I started this lark before data was put online, so data collection involved travelling to an archive or library and writing stuff down by hand. Only much later did it become easy to get a digital image of a census or register page and insert it in the database. My practices in this regard are very similar to some of those described in Source Citation Methods 1 & 2 (12386), which I've found quite a useful discussion.

(Edit:
On re-reading it, the above paragraph could probably be clearer. What I'm trying to say is that in the old days, unless you were putting a full transcription of entries in your program (I wasn't), getting a Census or Register source into a program didn't involve a lot of data, and could easily be handled with a broadly-defined Source and a (text) Citation. Now that it's easy to include images (but only in Sources - see below) the older way has significant drawbacks.)

(Further edit: Lorna points out below that you can attach an image to a Citation - sorry for misleading.)

So unlike others, I don't have any images of census entries or register entries in my database, and I don't include full transcripts of such entries either. So for a Census fact, I will typically have the Source (eg 1881 Census) and a brief Citation consisting only of the reference (eg RG11/1234 fo56 p78); this Source/Citation pairing will usually be attached to other facts too, such as Residence, Occupation or Birth.

In a FH database, there is a single copy of each Source, but each Citation is stored separately, even if it's identical to another Citation. Moreover, images can be attached to Sources but not Citations.

Thus my way of doing things (with no images or transcriptions) works reasonably well with Method 2. It does mean that most Citations appear several times in the database, but they are mostly short - around 20 text characters for a census, so it's not a massive overhead.

However, if you intend to include images or transcriptions, I acknowledge that Method 1 is likely to be preferable.

[LornaCraig]

Moreover, images can be attached to Sources but not Citations.

Actually media can be attached to citations, and the Show Media icon in the yellow Source Pane allows you to see, add or edit either Citation Media or Source Media. One of the recent FH upgrades introduced the improved Show Media pane to make it easier to see the citation media. I think this was done to help users who had migrated from another genealogy program in which media had always been linked to citations rather than sources. However the recommended method in FH has always been to use Method 1 (one source record per source document) in cases where media are involved, and to avoid the duplication of information in citations, as already discussed.

[arthurk]

Moreover, images can be attached to Sources but not Citations.

Actually media can be attached to citations, and the Show Media icon in the yellow Source Pane allows you to see, add or edit either Citation Media or Source Media. One of the recent FH upgrades introduced the improved Show Media pane to make it easier to see the citation media. I think this was done to help users who had migrated from another genealogy program in which media had always been linked to citations rather than sources. However the recommended method in FH has always been to use Method 1 (one source record per source document) in cases where media are involved, and to avoid the duplication of information in citations, as already discussed.

Sorry - I missed this when I did an edit to my post above, so my edit is wrong as well.

As I don't have images in my Sources/Citations I hadn't really picked up on this, but you are quite right to point out that an image in a Citation is likely to be duplicated several times in a database, making it even more sensible to use Method 1 where images are involved.

[tatewise]

To add a little explanation, the reason why Media images are often attached to Citations in other genealogy products, is that they do not follow the GEDCOM data model, and only have one copy of each Citation. So they don't have the Method 1 v Method 2 dichotomy. But when it is exported via GEDCOM, or imported directly into the FH GEDCOM model, each Citation gets replicated as there is no other option. Hence the need to convert such Method 2 citations to Method 1.

Picking up arthurk's comment about replicated small Citations are not a massive overhead, misses part of the point. The problem comes if you need to amend those Citations, so the first task is to find them all, and before FH V5 Plugins that was a non-trivial exercise. Even now, having found them, they all still need to be updated one by one, unless they are specific enough to allow Search & Replace to work.