Family Historian User Group

I am getting a footnote in the Ancestors By Generation report (for one source only) that has the text written twice. This is what I get:

Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York, "History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy" (Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876).
Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York, History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy (Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876).

This source is used around 60 times in my database, and it always prints this way. The source has three fields, Author, Title, and Publication Information, which come out correctly, as can be seen. However, they are repeated. I have other sources with the same three fields, and they appear to be ok. Other sources with just a Title field are ok. The problem appears to be with this one source.

I have checked the entries for the three fields, of course. They are what they should be. I have run Show Project Statistics, and the only exceptions are ones I am aware of (e.g. some people got married late in life) and not related to this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Kenneth, that might be caused by a number of reasons.

Firstly, double-check that there are not two virtually identical Source records.
In the Records Window on the Sources tab sort by the lefthand Source Records column.
Are there two records with the same Title of History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy?
Remember that if a Source record has a Short Title then that will be shown instead.
If you find such a pair then use Edit > Merge/Compare Records to merge them into one.

Usually, with such Report repetition in Sources, they are listed with Ibid. instead of repeating everything.
That depends on the Report > Options > Sources tab ticking Use "Ibid." for Repeated Citations to Same Source.

If that is not ticked, such repetitions can be caused by some Citations being different from others for the same Source.
However, for that to happen I believe those differing Citation fields must be included in the Report Sources section as chosen on the Report > Options > Sources tab.
Just to be clear, the Citation fields I am talking about are those shown in the Property Box yellow Sources For pane and include Entry Date, Assessment, Where within Source, Text From Source (not the Source record one with same name), Note field, and Media linked to the Citation.
Most of those can be inspected by selecting the Source record and running the Where Used Record Links Plugin.

Hi Mike,

I just saw your reply. I apparently forgot to subscribe. In most forums you don't have to for your own posts.

• There is only one Source for this item in the Records window. (First thing I checked.)

• There is no Short Title, just Author, Title, Publication Information.

• Ibid. is checked in Report|Options. But the problem is not with repeated citations. The problem is with the text (all three of Author, Title, Publication Information) being repeated twice in a single footnote.

• I hit Installation Settings on the Report|Options|Source tab. I still have the duplicate text. I haven't changed the options much except for Generations.

• I don't understand about the Citations you mention, and I cannot find the Where Used Record Links Plugin

I looked at the Gedcom file:

All of the NOTE's look like this:

2 SOUR @S4@
3 NOTE Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York, History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy (Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876).

and the SOUR looks like this:

0 @S4@ SOUR
1 AUTH Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York
1 TITL History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy
1 PUBL Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876
1 CHAN
2 DATE 29 NOV 2019
3 TIME 18:42:33

Thanks for your help. I am still stuck.

Ok, the problem seems to be that there is a @S4@ and a NOTE. It's too late now. I'll look at it tomorrow.

A cause of this can be as simple as one letter different, I note the top one has double quotes, the lower one doesn't. Whilst the source record may be unique, if there is a difference in the text in Where Within Source or Text From Source fields apparent duplication will happen.

No, it is much simpler than that, and the double quotes are the clue.
I thought it was just a typo that the OP had left out the double quotes in the replicated Source entry.

But the Note has no double quotes and that is what is appearing under the Source Author "Title" (Publication).

A screenshot would have got to the solution quicker, because there would only be one Source number in the margin.

To prove it, in Report > Options > Sources tab, untick the Source Citation ~ Notes option.
Kenneth, go look at the Sources For yellow pane Citation for that Source and the Note is right there!
If not required it can simply be deleted.

BTW: Kenneth, the Where Used Record Links Plugin is downloaded from the FH Plugin Store.
See Tools > Plugins > Plugin Store... where there are dozens more.
See plugins:about|> About Family Historian Plugins.

tatewise wrote: ↑

07 Apr 2020 09:36

No, it is much simpler than that, and the double quotes are the clue.
I thought it was just a typo that the OP had left out the double quotes in the replicated Source entry.

But the Note has no double quotes and that is what is appearing under the Source Author "Title" (Publication).

A screenshot would have got to the solution quicker, because there would only be one Source number in the margin.

I am not a frequent user of this forum. (Witness I didn't realize I would get no notifications.) I do not see a way to post a screen shot. It could be me. I didn't see the double quote either, but it was late. But, yes, there is only one footnote number for the text I posted originally.

Unchecking in Report > Options > Sources tab, the Source Citation ~ Notes option.
Kenneth, go look at the Sources For yellow pane Citation for that Source and the Note is right there!
If not required it can simply be deleted.

Report > Options > Sources tab, untick the Source Citation ~ Notes option: Yes, that fixes it. I'm not sure why, because the Note is not on the Citation. There is another box for not including Notes in the Source Information to Include that is unchecked. (I am using the Installation Settings).

There is no Note on the citation itself. (Rt. click|Properties on the record in Record|Sources tab, look in all tabs.) Would it not be in the SOUR field if it were there?

If I go to one of the individuals that has this citation. I see that is where it gets in as a Note. It's probably an artifact of my import from FTM. I fixed it by deleting the "3 NOTE ..." lines in the Gedcom file. There were a lot of them, and this was the easiest way. ("Use the source, Luke.")

BTW: Kenneth, the Where Used Record Links Plugin is downloaded from the FH Plugin Store.
See Tools > Plugins > Plugin Store... where there are dozens more.
See plugins:about|> About Family Historian Plugins.

I must be living in an alternate universe. I search for "where" on the page
https://www.family-historian.co.uk/plug ... ll-plugins
and only get two occurrences, neither of which is Where Used Record Links . I also don't find it by looking on the page, but, again, it might be me.

Thanks for all the extensive help.

To attach a file see this topic in the knowledge base.

info:forums#posting_topics|> Posting Topics

Bill

I must be living in an alternate universe. I search for "where" on the page
https://www.family-historian.co.uk/plug ... ll-plugins
and only get two occurrences, neither of which is Where Used Record Links . I also don't find it by looking on the page, but, again, it might be me.

It's at the bottom of the second page. They are in alphabetical order.

Ok, let us deal with each issue in turn, and give you some reference points for the future.

When you joined last November you would have been advised to study how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers.
It is worth returning there from time to time, and in the Introduction 2nd paragraph it gives tips for posting questions, replies, screenshots, etc, by reference to info:forums|> Forums Usage Tips, which is like Bill's advice and involves the ATTACHMENTS tab below the posting text box. It also explains the Notify me when a reply is posted option.

The Citation fields are not held within the Source record Property Box, but against the Fact, etc, that cite the Source.
The Citation Note is shown in the yellow Sources For pane associated mostly with the Individual Property Box.
I think your suggests that is where you eventually discovered it. Yes, it probably came from an FTM import
That is why it is important to carefully review imported data to identify such anomalies.
Are you aware of the how_to:index#importing_to_family_historian|> Importing to Family Historian advice?

I hope you have not deleted literally every 3 NOTE ... line from the GEDCOM file.
That might delete a lot more than just Citation Notes and could leave invalid 4 CONT or 4 CONC lines.
They might produce error messages or at least Unrecognised Data Fields (UDF).

Unfortunately, the Plugin Store Search looks for every word within the description and script of every Plugin, which makes it almost useless, and it does not like phrases enclosed in quotes. I have reported this problem to Calico Pie.
However, there are only two pages which can be listed alphabetically as mentioned by Lorna.

When you joined last November you would have been advised to study how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers.
It is worth returning there from time to time, and in the Introduction 2nd paragraph it gives tips for posting questions, replies, screenshots, etc, by reference to info:forums|> Forums Usage Tips, which is like Bill's advice and involves the ATTACHMENTS tab below the posting text box. It also explains the Notify me when a reply is posted option.

Well yes, I did that. Do you expect me to remember everything there half a year later when I have not visited the site since not long after that? I participate in a lot of forums. When they are designed well and typical, then it goes better. In my book you should write things so a user manual is not needed. Not always possible, of course, but for the problems I had finding things here, I think it is.

Are you aware of the how_to:index#importing_to_family_historian|> Importing to Family Historian advice?

I am aware of it and have spent many hours getting my FTM import straightened out. I thought I had it some time ago, but then I noticed this problem. This is not owing to lack of support from Family Historian folks. It is just hard to do. However, thanks for the heads up.

I hope you have not deleted literally every 3 NOTE ... line from the GEDCOM file.
That might delete a lot more than just Citation Notes and could leave invalid 4 CONT or 4 CONC lines.
They might produce error messages or at least Unrecognised Data Fields (UDF).

I only deleted the "3 NOTE" lines that had this citation, and I did check for level 4 lines below. The problem is gone, and I don't expect what I did to cause other problems. But thanks for the heads up.

Unfortunately, the Plugin Store Search looks for every word within the description and script of every Plugin, which makes it almost useless, and it does not like phrases enclosed in quotes. I have reported this problem to Calico Pie.
However, there are only two pages which can be listed alphabetically as mentioned by Lorna.

The problem is I was not expecting two pages when I clicked on a link for all plugins. Why have two pages? Those types of pages with few graphics load fast. The indication that there is another page

• Is at the bottom

• Is very small

• Is easy to miss as I did.

While I will accept responsibility for missing it, it's bad design.

Likewise having the original poster not be automatically subscribed is bad design and not what most forums do.

I, being only an occasional visitor to your site, see it differently from you who are intimately familiar with it. I provided my experience as feedback. I am a reasonably sophisticated Internet user and look at dozens of pages almost every day. It was my experience. I hope I was not too critical. You can use the feedback as you please. You don't need to respond.

On the positive side, this is a good site. The FHUG Knowledge base is excellent. The people, like yourself, are very responsive.

Again, I thank you for your help and interest.

Kenneth, I don't expect you to remember every nugget of advice, but I do hope you remember where the newcomer tips exist and review them from time to time, or when you are looking for advice, as the answer might be there.

You are not the first to be surprised that the Notify me when a reply is posted option is not enabled by default, and I will see if that can be rectified.

I will pass your comments regarding the Plugin Store list on to Calico Pie for their consideration.

I did go back and install the Where Used Record Links plugin today. Of course I now know to look on the second page, but looking at it today I am more inclined to blame myself not finding it. I did go to the plug-ins store twice looking for it unsuccessfully, though. It was probably because I was not expecting a second page and hence didn't "see" it.

But I have trouble finding things on grocery store shelves, too.

It wasn't what I needed anyway, since the problem was not with the Citation.

What would have worked was Search and Return Results Set on "Albert Welles". At least that would have worked after I had determined that the problem was having both a Note and Citation for those individuals.

Another comment: There were no level 4 fields after any of the NOTE's, which means in particular there was no CHAN item. This probably means it did come in with the FTM import. Getting rid of unwanted Notes in general was one of the hardest parts of converting to FTH from FTM. (The hardest was was getting the FTM GEDCOM to even import sensibly. FTM really did not follow the GEDCOM spec well at all.)

Kenneth, you've said the original snag was NOT a Citation Note issue and I can't let that pass without comment.
I suspect it is a matter of terminology differences between FTM and the FH / GEDCOM model.
Some products like FTM merge the Source Citations into one entity and refer to them as Citations.
The FH / GEDCOM model has two distinct entities: 1) Citation pane; 2) Source record.

The Citation pane is associated mostly with Facts in Indiviudal records, but also other data.
That has its own local data coupled to a link to the Source record.
In the GEDCOM those entities look like your early posting of:

2 SOUR @S4@
3 NOTE Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York, History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy (Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876).

where the Citation links to Source record @S4@ with a local subsidiary Note, and is displayed in FH as below.
There can be many instances of such Citations linking to any one Source record.
That is confirmed by your need to delete multiple 3 NOTE ... lines from the GEDCOM file.
It is further confirmed by the Report > Options > Sources tab Source Citation Information to Include tickable Notes option that switches the Note on & off.


The Source record is an entirely separate entity as represented by your early posting of:

0 @S4@ SOUR
1 AUTH Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York
1 TITL History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy
1 PUBL Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876
1 CHAN
2 DATE 29 NOV 2019
3 TIME 18:42:33

which has its own distinct Text From Source and Note fields as shown below:


I hope that makes the distinction between Citations and Sources in FH / GEDCOM terms much clearer, otherwise your future postings on related topics might confuse us.

If you run the Where Used Record Links Plugin on that Source record it will list each Citation with any local Citation Note as shown below:

tatewise wrote: ↑

09 Apr 2020 11:39

Citation Pane

CitationPane.png (24.87 KiB) Viewed 10349 times

Mike is the "problem" for so many the first word on your screen shot?

The yellow bit of the property box is as you correctly name the screen shot, the Citation Pane and it should read "Citations for". The only "Source" bit is the grey "framed" bit; everything else is supporting how the selected source is being cited.

Would a wish list item to change this to read "Citations for" at the top, and then below the sources frame a subheading "Citation detail" reduce confusion?

"Add Citation" is also more properly "Select source being cited"?

Mike, yes, I used the word Citation where I should have used Source (as FH uses the terms). In science, I would call the sources references, and a citation is usually when someone references your paper. It's a matter of semantics, but I agree the proper semantics here are the ones FH uses. Your explanation was very clear and has helped clarify my thinking.

The original snag was not a Source issue is what I should have said.

In short my understanding is that a Source is what is in a SOUR tag, and a Citation is where it is used, which is a tag of the form @S4@.

I am impressed that you made the screenshots I should have. However, if I run Where Used Record Links there is no Citation Note column. That is probably because my Sources have no Notes. And why would that column be called a Citation Note rather than a Source Note? I was also confused by the options in the Report Options regarding Source Information to Include and Source Citation Information to Include. I now understand the difference (I think), but it seems the defaults of Notes unchecked for the first and Notes checked for the second are backward from what one would want. And when I unchecked the later, that is when I stopped getting the duplicates (even though my Sources don't have Notes, as I have said several times). I will have to check if I have missed Notes that should have been included. And there is yet another semantic usage here. You wouldn't want to say Source Source Information to Include, I presume.

All of this indicates I may still be confused.

As to FTM, I don't recall what terms they used, but they put some of them in a _FOOT tag. It is how FH handles the _FOOT tag that has given rise to the problems I have had with notes. I am not criticizing FH. I don't think it has a concept such as the _FOOT as used in FTM.

I only learned GEDCOM in order to get my stuff into FH sensibly at all.

Added later:
Sorry, I missed the Citation Note column in the Where Used Record Links results. I'm having mouse problems. Actually resizing columns behaves strangely there is the problem. It is there. So what is it?

The Citation Note is the one illustrated in Mike's screenshot. It is the last field in the yellow Citation pane.

From what you have said, you don't have anything in the Note field of your Source Record, but you do have something (or rather, you did) in the Citation Note field. That's why when you unchecked the option to include the Note from Citation Information the problem went away.

I am getting more confused. There is a Citation Note column. If I click on it and select Properties I get what is on this screenshot. Why is there a Note on a Source for which I have no Note

Answer my own question: The screenshot was from the uncorrected file. That Note is no longer there in the corrected version. Those are apparently the ones that got deleted when I manually edited the GEDCOM file. They apparently got added as Notes to the Source in the Individual Records that used that Source. Interesting.

The note highlighted in your screen shot is not actually a note on the source but a note on the reference to the source (the citation) (Refer back to my previous post about how FH appears to play a little fast and loose with the difference between sources and citations.)

As you have noted this has to be accessed through the "All" tab - which is an acquired taste, but useful. I use it to attach shared notes to census citations (which avoids the citation detail duplication that Mike cites as a reason for not being a "lumper").

As I said in my previous post, you have a Citation Note but not a Source Note.

The Note field you see in the Source record itself is not the same thing as the Note field you see in the Citation.

As an example: your Source might be a parish register of baptisms. In the Note field for the Source Record itself you might enter details about where you found it, what date range it covers, whether any pages appear to be missing etc. But you might have several citations of this Source for different baptisms. And in a Citation Note you might say whether the handwiting for a particular baptism entry is easy to read, whether there is any doubt about the spelling of the name, etc.

Kenneth, your screenshot shows an INDIVIDUAL record [351] for Thomas WELLES.
EVERYTHING displayed there is completely separate from the SOURCE record [4].
The entity named Source is a CITATION that points to the SOURCE record History of the Welles Family in England ....
The subsidiary Note is local to that CITATION which is why it is a Citation Note.
The same information is shown in the yellow Citation pane.
They are exactly identical to the GEDCOM which I realise has a confusing SOUR tag but it is the CITATION :-

2 SOUR @S4@
3 NOTE Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York, History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy (Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876).

From your earlier posting, you still have not got a clear understanding of the difference between a Citation and a Source.
So go back over my posting of a Citation pane, Source record and Where Used Record Links results.

Kenneth, your screenshot shows an INDIVIDUAL record [351] for Thomas WELLES.
EVERYTHING displayed there is completely separate from the SOURCE record [4].

Not really, it has a Source in it.

The entity named Source is a CITATION that points to the SOURCE record History of the Welles Family in England ....
The subsidiary Note is local to that CITATION which is why it is a Citation Note.
The same information is shown in the yellow Citation pane.
They are exactly identical to the GEDCOM which I realise has a confusing SOUR tag but it is the CITATION :-

2 SOUR @S4@
3 NOTE Albert Welles, President of the American College of Heraldry and Genealogical Registry of New York, History of the Welles Family in England and Normandy (Albert Welles, 67 University Place, New York, 1876).

Statements like "The entity named Source is a CITATION" is where it gets confusing.

From your earlier posting, you still have not got a clear understanding of the difference between a Citation and a Source.

I agree. In the meantime I have gone over all of my Sources (what appears under the Sources tab in the Records window) using Where Used Record Links. I found other problems, and it was very useful in fixing them. So I think I understand the mechanics, now.

And, yes, I am using "Citation Notes" in a wanted way, for instance for one of my Sources titled Obituary, where I include more details if available. And I now have a Note for a Source (not Albert Welles).

I interpreted the Report Options | Sources | Source Information to Include and Source Citation Information to Include backwards. I now have that straight.

But I am still confused by the terminology.

I think it is proper to call the things under the Source tab in the Records window Sources. These correspond to a SOUR record. I am not sure how you define Citation. Possibly it is the things in the yellow box for Individuals. (I see the yellow box for a Source says "Not Applicable".)

As an added note, now that I have used the Where Used Records Links more, I see the reason I thought there was no Citation Note column is that if you pull the horizontal scroll bar to the right, it pops back. You have to pull it several times to actually get to the right.

I think it is proper to call the things under the Source tab in the Records window Sources. These correspond to a SOUR record. I am not sure how you define Citation.

Yes, everything listed on the Sources tab of the Records window is a Source record. But every time you create a link between that Source record and another record (which need not be an individual - it could be a Family Record, or a Note Record), that link is called a Citation. A citation is not a type of record, it is a link between a Source record and another Record or a particular fact in that other record. The Citation details are the ones shown in the yellow pane, and relate only to that link.

As I tried to explain in my earlier example of a baptism register, you might want to have a Note in the Source Record itself, relating to the Source as a whole, and different notes attached to the various citations which refer to particular entries within the Source. Similarly you might want to refer to different page numbers using the Where within Source field in the different citations.

Perhaps if you find the Source label & SOUR tag difficult to think of as just a Citation then let us call it a Source Citation that links to the Source Record.
That is then consistent with the Report > Options > Sources tab Source Citation Information to Include.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that many links between records have a very similar structure.
In one record there is a WXYZ @W123@ tag that links to the other record starting with a 0 @W123@ WXYZ tag.
That applies to links to Media records using the OBJE tag, and links to Note records using the NOTE tag.
The exceptions are links between Individual and Family records where the tags are slightly different and links to Place records that use the place name instead of Record Id.