Family Historian User Group

I'm puzzled by the order of events shown in the facts tab. I've read Sorting Children, Spouses & Facts into Date Order so I know how to sort the dates manually, but I'm still wondering a few things:

• Is there a way to automatically sort the facts so they always appear in proper date order with me having to keep clicking on the column date heading (or some other manual menu) to sort them?
  When I create a new fact, it appears at random places in the fact list. For instance, if I have my cursor sitting on (highlighting) a fact in 1835, and then I create a new event, it puts that new event about 7 facts down in 1867. This is before I've even typed anything in the fact. Once I type the info in, it stays there, regardless of what the fact date is. This means I have to constantly sort the date column on the facts to get them in chronological order. I don't understand why it's doing that. Any insights?

• As you can see in the attached photo, I have a ChildParent event that is placed out of order. I was able to fix this by sorting with the column headings but I don't understand why it didn't sort properly when I clicked "sort family & events" option in the property box settings tag. It told me there were no out-of-sequence events were found. What am I missing?

There are various factors that affect the sorting of facts.

The Facts tab can be misleading because it does NOT sort the underlying database.
It only sorts the display, and merges facts from potentially many Individual and Family records.

The All tab gives a true indication of the order of the facts in the database.

When you add new facts they are ALWAYS appended to the existing facts for the current Individual (or Family) record.
Entering the Date does not change that. Sorting on the Facts tab does not change that.
Only using the Re-order or Sort commands will reorganise the database.
The most comprehensive is Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data...

The FHUG KB article mentions the Normal Time Frame for each fact.
Have you checked the Normal Time Frame for each of your custom facts such as ChildParent and Military?
That may be upsetting the sorting algorithm if not specified rationally.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply.

Both of those facts are set to "lifetime".

Your note made me realize that the sort function in the settings must be sorting the "All" tab rather than the facts tag. I just added a new fact and it is properly placed by date in the "All" tab but not the facts tab. I sorted the database using the tools-->reorder out of sequence, and it definitely caught out-of-sequence items that the other sorting actions didn't, so thanks for the tip! I clearly wasn't understanding the distinction of the different choices.

So now I know enough to refine my question: Is there a way to have the facts tab automatically display the facts in date order without having to sort the columns manually? Now it's not about changing the sort date in the database (since I can periodically do the tool/sequence thing) but it's purely about the visual display of the facts tab.

Is there a way to have the facts tab automatically display the facts in date order without having to sort the columns manually?

When new facts are first added they may be displayed in the wrong order, but the display just needs to be refreshed, either by sorting manually or by simply switching the focus of the Property Box to a different person and back again. They will automatically display correctly after that. It doesn't remain wrong permanently.

I think clicking a column heading Fact or Age or More then the Date heading should sort by Date.