* Principal & Role Added as a Witness to the Fact

[RJDoggett]

I am finding that for facts such as births, marriages and deaths, the principal is automatically being added as a witness in addition to the fact entry.

The result is that the sentences associated with fact the become a combination of the fact and witness sentences e.g. "He/She was a Child at Birth of {their name} on..." or "He/She was a Deceased at Death of...", or He/She was a Groom/Bride at Marriage of...".

Deleting the Witness entries returns the fact sentences back to the standard versions.

How do I turn off this automatic entry feature? I have tried searching the Knowledge Base etc but have not found anything that addresses this feature.

Many thanks.

[Jane]

Family Historian does not add any information automatically, are you using Ancestral Sources or a DEA plugin to enter the information?

[RJDoggett]

No, this is Family Historian only. What I am finding is that having added fact entries for individuals, I go back later to find that there are Witness entries for them as the principal(s) for the event entered.

When I first started using FH a year or so ago, everything appeared to be working as intended. Now I am seeing these witness entries that are causing the narrative sentences to be corrupted.

Is it possible that the fact sentence templates have become corrupted so are the source of the problem? It looks as if the problem is limited to BMD entries.

[tatewise]

I don't think it is anything to do with the Sentence Templates as they are passive and do not perform data insertions.

Go very slowly through the steps of adding a BMD fact one field at a time and check the All tab for the details of that fact.
e.g.
On the Facts tab, use the Add Fact button to add a BMD fact, then open and expand the All tab to show all sub-fields.
Then add a Date or Place or whatever you usually do next, and check the All tab again.

At what step does the Principal Witness get added?

Describe your steps leading up to that point and provide screenshots if nevessary.

[RJDoggett]

Hi Mike,

I have not been able to identify a case where a principal has been added as a witness for the work that I have been doing recently. I managed to find a bit in the knowledge base related to TMG imports where principals could be included as a witness for the role. I think that this is most likely the source of my problem.

I have looked back at areas that I have worked in recently where I deleted the witness role from the principals. Deleting the witness role returns the fact sentence back to the normal version; I have not found that I can positivley identify as having again has the principal added.

It seems as though deleting the witness roles for the principals as I come across them will be the easiest means of resolving the problem. Thoughts/comments?

Many thanks.

[tatewise]

It is just that you were so certain that adding a new Fact to FH was auto-creating a Principal Witness too!

Certainly, importing from other products such as TMG often includes Facts with a Principal Witness and FH will faithfully retain those and may also import a Witness Sentence that is imperfect.

Yes, the solution is to delete those Principal Witnesses whenever you find them.
It should be possible to create a custom Query that finds such Principal Witnesses so they can be deleted en bloc.