* Press notices

[ColinMc]

I have a number of press reports of deaths. I've used AS to enter what data I can in relation to the actual death. This has obviously created the Source and (I now know) a number of citations. I've edited the autotext from AS to delete quite a few items not present in the press report.

The text of the press article remains to be dealt with. In some ways it could be treated as an Obituary, although in some cases it is only a couple of paragraphs. Even the longer articles are not of the lengteh that would traditionally be thought of as an Obituary.

I therefore decided to add it to the Source. Are there advantages/disadvantages to insert it as a Note, or as Text from Source. Also Is it better to add it to the Fact, or the Source?

[tatewise]

The press notice should be treated as an independent source document, quite separate from any Death Certificate or Burial Record you might discover.
So it will have a Source record of its own with a suitable Title and other fields such as:
Type would be News Cutting or something similar.
Author would be the newspaper or perhaps the reporter if known.
Publication Info would be the specific newspaper edition and page number.
Text From Source would hold a literal transcript of the press notice.
Note would only mention any unusual circumstances not apparent otherwise.
The Media tab would link to an image of the press notice.
This all assumes you are using Method 1 'splitter' Source Citations.

That press notice Source record would be cited by the Death Event and perhaps an Occupation attribute if the person's job is mentioned, or by any relations that are mentioned.

[ColinMc]

Thanks, that what I wanted confirmed particularly.

Text From Source would hold a literal transcript of the press notice.
Note would only mention any unusual circumstances not apparent otherwise.

Ta

Colin

[ColinMc]

Mike, many thanks for the help over the last couple of days.

I feel for the first time I have now started to understand A Source and a Citation much more clearly

[ColeValleyGirl]

Note would only mention any unusual circumstances not apparent otherwise.

I do things a little differently.

In the Note for the Source I record anything about the Source that is worth remark -- e.g. "The original (paper) source can be seen in the digital image used to be very badly damaged, so there is missing information in the right-hand column".

In the note for the Fact I record what Mike calls 'unusual circumstances not apparent otherwise', often discrepancies between two sources -- e.g. "The Newspaper report from Kidderminster gave the place of death as Tettenhall Staffordshire, but the death certificate states Wolverhampton. It is not possible to resolve this discrepancy without more evidence."

[tatewise]

I don't disagree with Helen.
The Note fields are for highlighting anything that may not be obvious from inspecting the other fields, etc.

[ColinMc]

That is a nice and very helpful addition to the topic.

One of the problems of using this software is the massive flexibility and freedom as to how we capture and apply data. The drawback of that same flexibility is the fact that we all we all then can work in our own (probably in my case) weird & wonderful ways. It also means that however many tutorials there are, I find that when I have a question it is never quite answered. So picking the brains from those of you that have done it and made all the mistakes is very useful.

I'm going to use a mix of the two answers for the future.

Thanks

[tatewise]

The overriding consideration, whatever technique you choose, is to be as self-consistent as possible.
That sometimes means going back over previous data and reorganising it.

[ColinMc]

That is exactly what I'm about to do. I have a small number (less than 10) press articles to update). However I do it, I want it to be consistent.

[davidf]

This all assumes you are using Method 1 'splitter' Source Citations.

If you go the other way (what people call "lumpers") the chain of evidence appears more stretched because the citation takes a bigger role and (I think) your source can take on a more useful role.

If you guide yourself with the definition that a source is the answer to "Where did I get this information - from where did I source it?", you could answer (for instance) "The British Newspapers Collection on Find My Past" - and that becomes your (large) source; and the field where within the source (your citation) would be (for instance) "Huddersfield Examiner; 25 April 1888, P6 col 8".

At this point it is possibly worth considering the "notes" that can be added. (There is a parallel thread running on Notes)

In common to both approaches there is the Fact Note (bottom half of the left hand side of the fully expanded property window). This is for notes about the fact; in the example under original discussion (death notices), this would be facts specifically about the death. So you might add in this note area "his home" - indicating that the recorded place of death was his home. In diagrams the fact note normal shows under the fact.

Individual Property Window showing FACT Note and CITATION Note

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For lumpers the citation note (bottom half of the right hand side of the fully expanded property window) contains notes about the specific bit of the source being cited and the "Text from source" (actually text from the source which is being cited) contains the transcript. So if the transcript says something which you believe is wrong, you could note this in the citation note.

For splitters all this information could more "easily" be stored on the Source Note and the Text from Source fields (accessed via the Blue Right Pointing Arrow half way down the Right Hand side of the fully expanded property window). The citation Note and Text From fields referred to above are then effectively redundant - except where the split source is being linked to more than one person and there is a need to note information specific to that person.

Source Window showing SOURCE Note (example lumper usage)

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For lumpers these fields can be used for specific comments about the Source (as a large source) - a facility not as easily available to splitters. So for instance where your source is a "moving target" - where stuff is still being digitalised - such as "The British Newspapers Collection on Find My Past", you may want to regularly revisit it to see if more stuff has been digitalised. I use the source note to keep details of when I searched this collection and what a search returned.

This is particularly useful when Ancestry offers a "free access weekend". You can search for a surname and look at the number of records returned "by collection" and compare this number to the details you recorded last time. This helps you focus in on which records you have not checked.

If I was searching a source that was a microfilm at an Archive and only got part way through it, I could use this field to record how far I got on that day.

I have (as a lumper) also used the Source note to emphasis that for instance when I say "Beaumont Parish Register" I do mean the physical artefact (not a microfilm of it) because say the microfilm is poor quality and if you make this point to the staff they will fetch the actual register out of the strongroom.

If you are sourcing a book and different versions have different information, I would create two sources (with the published date or edition number in the source title) and possibly put an explanation of the differences in the relevant Source Notes.

[ColeValleyGirl]

For lumpers these fields can be used for specific comments about the Source (as a large source) - a facility not as easily available to splitters.

A splitter such as myself can associate notes with large "sources" in few ways. Two that I can think of straight away:

• If using Repositories, as a note against the Repository. (You could even 'misuse' Repository to represent a collection or database such as "The British Newspapers Collection on Find My Past" -- I say misuse because it's not what it is intended in Gedcom terms, but if it works for you.... and you use it consistently.)
• In a Shared Note maybe attached to anything, maybe included in a Named List; the Shared Note would be something like "Search progress on collection ABC". You could even designate the Note as 'Collection ABC' with and use it to group split sources by linking it to the sources.

As always FH is very flexible...