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Stories, narratives, newspaper reports

Posted: 08 Oct 2022 11:44
by Ruth_W
I am interested to know how people use FH in relation to narratives, such as newspaper reports, or, say, a biographical account, or a letter - but something that doesn't really fit into an event as such, or that you don't wish to use in that way. For example, my grandad won 2nd prize for his dahlias - it's quite an interesting snippet, but not really a life event! I've als got relatives involved in court cases as witnesses etc.

I don't print out family history reports from FH, so I'm not too bothered about that element, but I would like to have a way of keeping little snippets and stories with the people concerned. I suppose it comes down to Notes (which I tend to use for remarks like "He wasn't the Fred Jones who married Ada Smith, because ..." or for research logs) or to add them as Media.

I'm just interested in people's experiences and pros and cons before I go too far down one road or the other.

Re: Stories, narratives, newspaper reports

Posted: 08 Oct 2022 11:54
by ADC65
In my opinion, it's things like you are collecting that make the difference between a family history and a family tree - knowing if someone was up in court, or won a singing prize, or one of the many everyday things that happen - help add interest to an otherwise clinical list of facts.

I scan the relevant documents and attach them to the person. Anything in a newspaper gets attached to a Newspaper Article fact - I can't remember if I created that or if it's already in FH. I find it more difficult to decide where to add more personal items - my great-grandfather wrote a poem to my great-grandmother and I have the original. At the moment I have just scanned it and attached it as a media item to both of their records.

Re: Stories, narratives, newspaper reports

Posted: 08 Oct 2022 11:56
by ColeValleyGirl
If you search for Biography using the search box top right, you'll see this has come up a number of times before.

I'd create a fact type called Biography to document the information, and either attach the cutting (of the newspaper, not a Dahlia) either as a source or more likely to the Fact.

Re: Stories, narratives, newspaper reports

Posted: 08 Oct 2022 12:10
by Ruth_W
Thanks, I had looked but not found anything (biography is a good search term in hindsight!). The Biography attribute (? not fully au fait with all the terminology ... ) seems to be ideal.