* A question on Sources

[evinther]

Hello,

I'm working with a trail version of FH 6 (until now I've been using Legacy Family Tree). In general I really like FH compared to LFT. FH is mush more intuitive and supports my workflows much better, i.e. quicker and easier to work with.

However, I struggeling a bit with Sources, and find i have to enter redundant information over and over again when it comes to general records, such as church records and census'. Let me explain through an example e.g. Census 1871 Scotland RG99-12345-342 (from the Sample Project). If i find say six people in this census I'll have to enter the same Author, Title, Type and Repository six times + the individual Actual Text for each six sources.

In this example i see the the Census (Author, Title, Type and Repository) as "the source" and the Actual Text belonging to the individual Citations.

Have i missed something regarding the concept of Sources and Citations ?

Any advice and tips are very welcome.

Thanks
Erik

[Ron Melby]

Untitled.png

you should have an arrangement somewhat like this.

lets say you just entered the census

as say date 1920

go to the right ...sources> + and look up the source, put the difference like line number house number all that on the text from source line....

does that help you some?

[Ron Melby]

Untitled.png

you should have an arrangement somewhat like this.

lets say you just entered the census

as say date 1920

go to the right ...sources> + and look up the source, put the difference like line number house number all that on the text from source line....
this is what should pop up when you hit the plus and scroll

Untitled1.png

[AdrianBruce]

... If i find say six people in this census I'll have to enter the same Author, Title, Type and Repository six times + the individual Actual Text for each six sources.

In this example i see the the Census (Author, Title, Type and Repository) as "the source" and the Actual Text belonging to the individual Citations.

Have i missed something regarding the concept of Sources and Citations ? ...

This is the choice you have to make - does a single source record represent the whole of the 1871 census? Or does a single source record represent just one household schedule within that 1871 census? (You'd need to adjust the title to match, of course).

That's your first decision - and it's the topic of lots of threads in here. A single source record representing the whole of the 1871 census is what a "lumper" does. A single source record representing just one household schedule within that 1871 census is what a "splitter" does.

I happen to be a splitter - some people say, "But you'll have lots of source-records!" To which my response is, "Yes. And? That's why I use a computer!"

Have a ponder and search the Knowledge Base and ponder some more. There is no single answer - I am a splitter for most, but not all, of my source records.

[tatewise]

There is a great deal of advice in the Knowledge Base. See how_to:index#recording_facts_and_sources|> Recording Facts and Sources.
There is an explanation of the difference between Method 1 'source splitters' and Method 2 'source lumpers' modes.
There are examples of recording various types of popular source documents.
In particular review how_to:recording_census_records|> Recording from a Census Record.
A popular 'source splitters' concept is to have one Source record for one household entry on a Census page.
The Text From Source field of that Source record, holds a transcript for that household of people.
The Media tab links to a copy of the Census page Media image file that may focus on the household.
The Census event for each Individual in the household has a Citation of that one Source record.

Other things you have overlooked is that FH offers Fact and Citation buttons for Copy and Paste, but even more importantly the ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources companion program short circuits much of the repetitive drudgery of data entry and ensures more consistent data formats.

[evinther]

Thanks all for you answers Mike, Adrian and Ron.

It was all very helpful. I can't say I'm completely decided on wich approach I'll take, but at least I now know the pros & cons with the two principal approaches, i.e. 'splitter' and 'lumper'.

The Ancestral Sources plugin also sounds useful. Unfortunately the trial version of FH does not support plugins, so i guess i might as well go all in and purchase the key.

Do any of you you have experience with the Ancestral Sources plugin?

Thanks again.

Erik

[jbtapscott]

Whilst there is a Plugin for Ancestral Sources, it is merely a way of starting AS from within Family Historian and ensuring AS uses the same Project as you currently have open in FH. Ancestral Sources is a "companion program" and thus can be opened without the Plugin.

[evinther]

Ah .. thanks Brent

[tatewise]

An important deciding factor on whether to use 'splitter' or 'lumper' Source records is whether you wish to have textual transcripts &/or media image files.
The types of Source where the answer is Yes are easier to manage without duplicated data as 'splitters'.
See glossary:method_1_source_splitters_mode|> Method 1 'source splitters' mode.
Those where the answer is No are easier to manage as 'lumpers'.
See glossary:method_2_source_lumpers_mode|> Method 2 'source lumpers' mode.

The point is that you don't have to make a global decision to use one approach.
Some of your Source types may be 'splitters' and some may be 'lumpers' in the same Project.
e.g.
BMD Certificates and Census household records often benefit from transcripts & media images, so could be 'splitters'.
BMD Index records often don't need transcripts or images so could be 'lumpers'.

Yes, Ancestral Sources is a program, and benefits from the Ancestral Sources Data Entry launcher Plugin, but it's not essential. It is a common mistake made by newcomers, but is explained in ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources.

[AdrianBruce]

...
BMD Certificates and Census household records often benefit from transcripts & media images, so could be 'splitters'.
BMD Index records often don't need transcripts or images so could be 'lumpers'.
...

Yes, that's a good pair to choose as examples, Mike. As I said, I'm a dedicated splitter, so have a single source-record for each certificate but I have just one source-record for the FreeBMD index. My justification is that each index entry supports only one or two facts so a simple copy of the citation from one fact to the next is enough - everything can be seen in text-from-source in my usage. I usually say that the "payload" of a BMD index entry is minimal compared to that of a full certificate.

By the way, for me, FreeBMD is one source-record, the Ancestry BMD index would be another - in fact, I suspect I've got two source-records for Ancestry BMD indexes - one for the one that they originally copied from FreeBMD and another for the one they created using OCR(?) working on the later years.

[tatewise]

Similar examples to those are explored in some depth in the two Knowledge Base articles referenced earlier.
It seems possible that few people actually read and digest those articles thoroughly

[evinther]

I agree, both approaches can come into play, depending on the situation.

In regards to Census records, my idea at the moment is to define a 'lumper' source representing the entire census for location in question.

I'm Danish national, and our census are organised as County | Shire | Parish, so the Title I would compose using : <census year>, <county-shire-parish>
In addition to the Title I would use the Note attribute to store a deep link (hyperlink) to the online scanned copy of the census.
No further information.

In my Census Fact Source Citation for an individual (the yellow section), i would link to the 'lumper' source above, and use the 'Where within Source' to register the precise page in the census where the individual is found, and use 'Text From Source' to a trancription og the individuals details, and the Note for a deep link to that particular page.
In the Census Facts (gray section) I would use the Date for the actual date of the counting and Place for additional location information, e.g. Village name, Farm name etc.

I might chose to save a digital copy for that particular census page locally and link it to either the Census Fact Source Citation or the Census Facts section, but it's not really necessary these days.

Any comments or views on this approach?

regards
Erik

[tatewise]

My quick investigation of Danish Census records suggest they are similar to UK Census and USA Census records in that they record households of people with the relationship between them and the Head of household together with the place of birth and age and occupation of each person.
Therefore, there are several facts that can be derived for each person and each would need a similar Citation:

• Census Event showing the Date, Place & Address of census household, and the Age of the person.
• Name of person.
• Birth Event showing the Date & Place of birth even if only approximate.
• Occupation Attribute showing the Date & Place and the Occupation.
• The relationship to Head establishes spouse, child, and other family links.

Those multiple Citations would require duplication of the Where within Source and Text From Source and maybe Note and attached Media image in the yellow Sources For section.
Some of those fields would included duplicate data for each member of the household.
So I would recommend you use the 'splitter' approach for those Census records for all the reasons explained at length in the glossary:method_1_source_splitters_mode|> Method 1 'source splitters' mode article. Then all that information would only be entered once in the Source record. That makes your database smaller and easier to manage. It also makes finding the records of each Individual household member from the Source record much easier.

I would also advise you download a digital image of each Census page, because it is amazing how often hyperlinks change these days.

[AdrianBruce]

... I would also advise you download a digital image of each Census page, because it is amazing how often hyperlinks change these days.

Indeed - and URLs from Record Offices and Archives seem very prone to change as each new IT team seeks to make its mark with a "far more logical" (of course! ) arrangement. In fact, Lancashire Record Office even contrived to lose several online background documents altogether. In the UK, we also lost a complete system (A2A) - its facilities were supposed to be rolled into the main TNA Catalogue but that's no help if you had URLs.

[evinther]

I see your point regarding the splitter approach with census, and any other sources pertain to more then one individual.

I'm not sure how this is handled in the UK or US, but in DK all public records (church record, census, probates, deeds, land records, etc.) are all managed and digitized by the Danish National Archives and their URL's are rock solid. Sometimes I find a photo or digitized record of various kinds with a local archive, or on a web page from a fellow genealogist, and in those instances I certainly download a private copy.

Thanks again for your advice.

Erik

[tatewise]

I hope you don't regret your trust in those rock solid URL ( How long have you been collecting them? )
Our UK Archives and Records do change their URL from time to time over the years.
Another consequence is the document images will not appear in Reports, website pages, etc.

There is a technique for adding URL hyperlinks that open manually via the Media tab of Source records.
See the Add Media URL Shortcut in the Plugin Store.
But unfortunately Plugins do not run in the 30-day Trial Version of FH.
It is possible to make the URL shortcuts by hand, but it is a bit complex.

[davidf]

We used to believe that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Roll of Honour website was sacrosanct, but they changed their underlying technology (and massively improved search access etc - possibly as a consequence) and the old URLs went with the old technology.

As an aside I do wish that sites that provided transcripts would enable a download in either code-friendly form (e.g. {Key: value; ....}) or minimally formatted form so that it pastes easily into either a text file or a spreadsheet.

[evinther]

I’ve been doing genealogy for about twenty years. In the beginning, when records became available online there were some instability, but at least for the last five years or so, I haven’t observed any changing URL’s for existing records.

Of course, I do agree with you that private copies of all records are to be preferred, but for ‘standard’ record types like Church Records and Census I must admit I take the easy way out. However, you do have a point regarding the absence of images in reports.

Okey, I then crate a splitter type source for a census, which allows me to have one source for the entire household, and the full transcription goes into the source ‘Text From Source’ and (if available) an image is added to the Media tab.
Going back to the Census Fact Source Citation (yellow section), Text From Source – I presume you would repeat the details for the one individual here?

What information do you record in the gray section – apart from the individual age. One could argue that Date, Place and Address are common to the entire household, and thus (logically) belongs to the splitter source.

Erik

[tatewise]

Erik, despite repeated requests, it sounds like you still have not read glossary:method_1_source_splitters_mode|> Method 1 'source splitters' mode that uses a Census as a worked example and answers your questions about what is normally recorded and where.

As said before, there is not just the Citation on the Census event, but a Citation on every derived fact, so it is not usual to replicate much in the yellow Citation fields. Considering such 'splitter' Citations in general and not just Census, only the Entry Date and Assessment fields need any data. The latter in particular indicates the credibility of the relationship between the Source and the Fact and often based on how contemporary that fragment of information is.
See glossary:sources#information_recorded_within_a_citation|> Information recorded within a citation for details.

It is necessary to include Date in the Census event for it to be automatically sorted into chronological order.

The Place and Address in the Census event will typically be 'normalised' values so that all location names in various facts for the same place & address use exactly the same format, rather than a literal copy of the Source details.

[evinther]

Sorry Tate, I must be absolutely stupid. I shall not borther you again.

[Jane]

Going back to the Census Fact Source Citation (yellow section), Text From Source – I presume you would repeat the details for the one individual here?

What information do you record in the gray section – apart from the individual age. One could argue that Date, Place and Address are common to the entire household, and thus (logically) belongs to the splitter source.

Personally I don't use the text from source for citations when recording Census pages, but I do record the date place and address on each Census fact, as that way you get nice sentences such as "He was recorded in the census on 5 may 1881 in Evershot, Dorset, England at 15 Back Street. His occupation in 1881 was a Mason."

There is much that is personal preference when selecting what to record and where. I tend to work on the premise that as long as someone looking at the information can find where I got my information from and how I arrived at the conclusion that I did then that is enough. I do download all Census and Parish images attaching them to sources, and with parish marriage records where I can see original signatures I will add an event image from the source image "cutting out" the signatures to show in reports. Most of my ancestors were poor labourers so often this is the only evidence I get that they had learned to write their name.

[davidf]

I think Jane highlights two distinct aspects of what you put into FH.

First, what you want to display in reports or diagrams - which is very dependent on Facts and what you enter in the left-hand side of the Individual's property box. Here you have play by FH's rules, or at least work in sympathy with the way the program works.

Personally I don't use the text from source for citations when recording Census pages, but I do record the date place and address on each Census fact, as that way you get nice sentences such as "He was recorded in the census on 5 May 1881 in Evershot, Dorset, England at 15 Back Street. His occupation in 1881 was a Mason."

Second, what you feel it is necessary to record about how you came to conclusions - and how you do this is far less important than the result. This is what the right-hand side of the property box is all about.

If, however, you want references to show in reports etc. you need to be aware of how you enter information in the RH side. It is worth experimenting with say an Individual Summary Report and seeing how information you enter in the RH side appears. In "Report Options" in the Report Window there is a tab to let you set a lot of options for showing/not showing citation/source information.

I tend to work on the premise that as long as someone looking at the information can find where I got my information from and how I arrived at the conclusion that I did then that is enough.

To achieve this end I personally like to keep a copy of the partial transcript that many of the major databases offer - but which I do check against the image in case of rogue transcriptions! Since upgrading the hard disk on my previous lap top to ensure "more than ample" storage and getting a (now modest) 8Mb broadband service with a 50GB monthly usage, I have found it convenient to take a copy of media images. I am also pondering whether (for censuses) to save the schedules before and after if there are "interesting names" in near-neighbouring households.

The question then is where/how do you store these items? Without going too far into the lumper/splitter debate, it is probably useful to recognise a couple of principles.

• Duplicating information (unless you are mechanically copying/pasting a Citation (say for a census) for which FH provides icons in the right hand sources section) is prone to introducing contradictions.
• Duplicating links to information avoids the introduction of such contractions as long as you are linking appropriately. In terms of database "purity" duplicating what database analysts call foreign keys (e.g. when you link a source in a citation to a fact, what FH is doing is picking up the ID of the source from the source tree and adding that ID (as a "foreign key") into the Individual's tree) is vastly preferred to duplicating information. The key takes you to the single source/note/media etc. (Lumpers will qualify that link with the "where within source" (like a page number where the source is a book) - although if you have linked an image, the qualification is also implied.)

When completing a "where within source" field I try to get back to something permanent. So if I picked up a census from Find My Past, I don't put the URL, but I put the original census reference (e.g. HO107; PN: 2434; FN: 303; PG: 7;). That makes it easier to find the same schedule in say Ancestry or at a record office. For a birth I might put something like Q2 1856; Cockermouth; Vol: 10B; Page: 445; rather than a URL. This sort of information will then appear in the "Sources" section of a report.

(For Censuses) I used to put the Transcript in the "Text from Source" box on the RHS. This does duplicate information (because you tend to put the full household transcript in the box and then copy/paste the citation to other members of the household). This box should only really be for information pertinent to the individual. Information pertinent to the household ideally should go somewhere unique to that household. For Splitters this would be as a note against the specific source (assuming the source is unique to a single household). For Lumpers it can either go against the "picture note" for the media or in a shared note linked to the relevant census fact citations for all members of the household (for the first member of the household this is fiddly as you have to go into the All tab and right click on the Census Source to add a new shared note, thereafter you are just copying/pasting the citation.)

How you choose to go is dependent on your personal workflow, your lumper/splitter choice, how you want information to appear in reports etc., and (possibly!) any feelings about database purity!

(If you are using Ancestral Sources you also have to make sure that is set up to support your choice.)

You then tend to have to live with that choice - or accept that reports may be inconsistent OR you have a major data tidying exercise to do!

[tatewise]

David said:

For Splitters this would be as a note against the specific source (assuming the source is unique to a single household).

However, most Splitters would use the Census household Source record Text From Source field (that is different from the Citation yellow box Text From Source field).

David said:

For Lumpers it can either go against the "picture note" for the media or in a shared note linked to the relevant census fact citations for all members of the household (for the first member of the household this is fiddly as you have to go into the All tab and right click on the Census Source to add a new shared note, thereafter you are just copying/pasting the citation.)

If you use Ancestral Sources set up appropriately, then that 'fiddly' process is automatically performed by AS.

[evinther]

Thank you, Jane and David, for your very detailed and comprehensive explanations. I now know what to consider when making my choices on what to register where. I’ll experiment with the different fact and record types and work out what suits me best.

Regards
Erik