* Narrative Reports for the Newbie

[Glenn Webby]

Hi Folks,

just wanted to ask some of you FH old hands (ie experienced ) out there about Narrative Reports and reports in general. Clearly one of the prime reasons we do this family history malarky is for an accessible, readable report.

The reports appear to be highly configurable, which is what I'm looking for, but I'm struggling with image placement and scale.

Configuring the section text, headers, etc is pretty straightforward. But with the images, it seems more limited -- though it's probably me not seeing how to do it! I'd like to place images within the text at different sizes. For example, Census records need to be fairly large to be legible, and I'd like to insert them in the main narrative so I can explain the context within the body rather than place a small image to the right of the text. I guess one way of explaining what I'd like is to flag certain types of images to be placed at a certain size in a central position in the text, whilst other types could be flagged to take up smaller sizes to the side of the main body. Does FH allow me to do that?

I generally use Affinity Publisher (AP) as my Desktop Publisher so I can output the text to RTF, paste into AP and then place images into the positions/scale I want, but I just wanted to know if FH could do that without my initial use of a DTP.

And if there are any other tips for generating reports that you have in your locker being a seasoned FH user, I'd appreciate finding out.

Many thanks for any help

[tatewise]

The short answer is that FH does not allow that degree of flexibility in sizing & positioning images in Reports.
FH does not pretend to be a word processor or desktop publisher because that is not its primary purpose.

Images in Reports fall into various categories: (Individual/Family Media tab, Facts/Places, and Source Citations)
Each category is customized with identical features on the Report > Options > Pictures tab & Sources tab.
The size can be freely adjusted but positioning is very restrictive.

See the FHUG Knowledge Base for An Overview of Reporting which has links to further guides and tips.

The recommended workaround, as you have discovered, is to save as RTF and use a word processor or desktop publisher.

One other option is to create a Book and use the Book Free Page Content capability as explained in Creating a Book.

[Glenn Webby]

Thanks Mike, I suspected that would be the case, just thought I'd check first.

On another but related issue, I'm having a slight problem with Narrative Reporting for an individual specifying the correct parental relationship.

The opening sentence begins Joe BLOGGS, son of X and Y was born ... etc

In this case Joe BLOGGS is the step son of X and his birth mother is Y. I've changed the relationship in the 'Relationship to Parents' drop box to reflect that, selecting 'Specify relationship to each parent separately' and choosing the appropriate options. However whatever relationship I specify the opening sentence does not change. So whilst it is true that Joe BLOGGS is the 'son' of X he is more accurately the stepson. I've checked the 'Preferences' for 'Records Window' to ensure the 'Indicate where children are adopted, fostered etc' is selected.

Sorry to ask such a newbie question, but what am I missing?

Many thanks.

[tatewise]

You are not missing anything. FH uses relationships such as son, daughter, father, mother, spouse, etc, quite loosely and not just biologically. So whether fostered, adopted, or step, the same relationship is used.

In the case of Joe BLOGGS, the report should use his first parents, which I would expect to be the biological parents.
So are his parents and step-parents recorded in the correct chronological order?

I guess there may be scenarios in descendant reports where Joe BLOGGS is a 'son' of the step-father's branch, but that is probably less likely to be a report of interest.

The Tools > Preferences > Records Window option does not impact Reports as explained via the Help button.
( It is actually a feature I had never noticed before and only affects Family record All tab displays. )

[Glenn Webby]

Thanks again Mike, your help is much appreciated.

In this case Joe BLOGGS is illegitimate ie an unknown father, X, but a known mother, Y, where Y is single (and has not previously married). Y then marries X some 10 years after Joe BLOGGS was born, so there’s very little connection between X and Joe. I’d very much like FH to be able to distinguish between son and step son in the Narrative Report to emphasise that distinction.

Short of a manual intervention or not turning that feature on in the report, it doesn’t sound like I can alter the automatically generated statement “Joe Bloggs was the son of X and Y”. Have I understood that correctly.

Thanks again for your help.

[NickWalker]

Your latest reply is a bit confusing because you have two men you describe as X but I am assuming they are different people.

There should be 2 families with Y as parent and they should be ordered (1) - a family with no father and the mother Y with Joe as the child. And a 2nd family with the mother and the father (X) without Joe as a child (unless you want to give Joe two fathers).

Illegitimate child.png (73.25 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

[Glenn Webby]

Yes, sorry Nick I didn’t read back.

Yes you’re right, Joe’s biological father is unknown, X prime if you like. Joe’s biological mother has Joe illegitimately and indeed in this case goes on to have 7 more children without marrying or being in a recorded relationship. Then she marries Mr X, who has biologically nothing to do with the children, other than he becomes their step father later on. So you’re right X prime is unknown, X is known and marries Y. Sorry for the confusion!

I’ve just ported from my previous software package so I’m working through the slightly different interpretations of the GEDCOM “standard”.

I think your graphic really helps and makes sense, thank you.

[tatewise]

Glenn, that 'graphic' is similar to what you should see in the Focus Window for the BLOGGS family.

Nick's suggestion is one interpretation, but many users do add the child to the married couple and depending on circumstances set the child's relationship to one or both parents as Adopted, Fostered, Step, etc.
In that case, a descendant report for the married couple uses the relationship son (or daughter) ignoring the non-biological relationship. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to customise that in FH and can only be edited via an external RTF file.

[NickWalker]

I'm a traditionalist in that I just record the biological parents but I agree that these other relationships could be added, but I think the suggestion I've made is the correct starting point, you can then finesse this afterwards, adding in relationship descriptions, etc.

[Glenn Webby]

Thanks both, really useful insights.

Yes Mike, what you describe many people doing, is exactly what I’ve done. I’ve used the relationship attribute to describe the relationship rather than create an unknown father. In fact, my previous tool wouldn’t allow that, so I presume the GEDCOM representation captured that.

Nick’s suggestion struck me as probably a logical representation or model of what actually occurred. I’ve just recreated your graphic Nick (I take it that’s exactly what you did to achieve the graphic — maybe a screenshot of the Focus window?) in a test project to see what that looks like in both charts and narrative. I guess whatever the representation, it’s the report content that’s important to communicate to others, so I’ll see whether it maps to what I expect. Figure I’d experiment before changing a reasonably large family tree with a number of illegitimate children scattered around.

Again, thank you both for your advice, it’s hugely appreciated.

[NickWalker]

Yes I created Y, added child Joe. Then added another family for Y and entered the name of the husband and then took the screenshot