Family Historian User Group

I'm not sure if this question has been asked before - I coudn't find anything on a quick search.

As with many people, I have adopted my own conventions whilst researching, and my research may have very clear boundaries. For example, on a birth entry where I have only the registration district as a place of birth I denote this by putting the registration district as the place of birth, but with an asterisk asfter the place name, e.g. Ripon*, Yorkshire, England. Where I do not have a woman's maiden name I will use her husband's name in square brackets as her surname. My research may be a one name study where I might not explicity follow maternal lines of descent. Whilst most of these conventions may be self evident to some-one picking up my research at some future date, it would be useful to be able to define my own set of conventions as a stand-alone note to the entire project. I realise I could use a stand-alone research note, but I'm curious as to what others have adopted as a solution to this specific issue. I tend to regard a research note as a focussed or specific set of set of tasks, arguments, etc. that relate to a specific individual or family, whereas a Project Description is more distanced and would define not only the researcher's conventions, but also the objectives of the research, its scope and limitations, as well as the conventions used by the researcher.

It may not be what it's intended for (Somebody will be along in a moment to give chapter and verse, no doubt) but I'd use the Note within the Header record (View > Special Records > Header Record)

On a point of detail, you cannot add a Note in the conventional way by using right-click Add Note.
You must open the Property Box and use the File Description box, which confirms that is where to describe the Project.
GEDCOM says this Note text is:

A note that a user enters to describe the contents of the lineage-linked file in terms of "ancestors or descendants of" so that the person receiving the data knows what genealogical information the transmission contains.

Another option, which is perhaps a bit more visible, is to add a standalone Note record with an initial line that explains its purpose and will alphabetically sort to the top of the Records Window Notes tab.

I think you need to make sure the information is in a place where anyone who takes over your project in the future might be able to find it. The answer might depend on whether they are likely to be opening your project in FH, or using a different software program, or just viewing the Gedcom file as text.

Helen has suggested using the Header record, but (speaking as someone who never looks at the header record in FH) that may not be the best place becasue it's not an obvious place to look. In fact most FH users will be completely unaware of the existence of the Header record. So if you are thinking of someone using FH I would use a standard Note Record (not a Research note), as Mike has suggested. If someone is familiarising themselves with FH they will probably see the various tabs in the Records window and look at the Notes tab.

Perhaps the 'belt and braces' solution is to use both a Note Record and the Header record.

Or to avoid duplicating the Notes, make the Header Note cross-refer to the Note record, or vice versa.

Don’t assume that the data will be accessed in FH. It will eventually become obsolete, so you want the data to be as recoverable as possible, even decades from now. For me, that points towards a standalone Note Record with a clear and obvious title.

The Header File Description Note is not a local feature of FH but a standard GEDCOM feature of the Header record.
So it should survive FH becoming obsolete.
GEDCOM is a plain text file and the Header Note is very near the start, so it is recoverable and possibly more visible than the Note records that are usually someway into the GEDCOM file after Individual and Family records.
It is only in FH that a Note record is perhaps more visible than the Header Note.
For those reasons, I suggested they cross-refer to each other.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have started to compile the project desription in the Header record, and as suggested, also made a cross-reference via a note record too. It is a shame that the File Decription cannot use formatting

But the Note record can use Rich Text formatting, so that may be a better option with a cross-reference from the Header.
However, for long term readability, it may be best to avoid any formatting as the codes may confuse future readers.
i.e. Try looking at the GEDCOM plain text file to see how the codes in Rich Text Notes could be confusing.