* Where can I see AS-created "Marriage Witness Notes" in FH?

[HoagyM]

Sorry if this is a newbie question but have looked on the Forum and Knowledge Base and can't see anything. Am just getting my head around the intricacies of entering sources via AS and how they then appear on FH.

Today I entered a marriage certificate via AS and included as an AS Note the comment that the two witnesses were from the same address. I then went into FH to see how everything had been updated and I couldn't see that comment anywhere, either on the individual records or on the source/citation records.

I then tried finding the text, using the global "Find" (binoculars) icon at the top of the screen, and bingo! It says that the text is there, recorded correctly against both the witnesses, and that the item type is a "Marriage Witness Note", with a record type of Family. So clearly the text has successfully made it across from AS into FH.

However I still can't find it! From that global find screen, I've tried pressing "Locate in Property Box", which just takes me to the marriage fact, and have hunted high and low, but can't actually find those two "Marriage Witness Notes" anywhere. And when I print out an individual narrative report for the relevant individual, that note does not appear.

So although FH is saying that those two "Marriage Witness Notes" are there, I can't see any way to find them, look at them, edit them, or report on them.

What am I missing?

[NickWalker]

Have a look at the properties box for one of the people who got married and in the Fact tab, click on the marriage fact. Underneath the list of facts you will see various buttons including one with 3 blue circles connected by 2 lines. This is the Witnesses button. Click this to view the witnesses and the notes. This is referred to on this knowledge base page: Witness Facts.

I don't think the notes will appear in the reports by default. It may be that the marriage fact sentence template could be edited to include the note but I'll let someone with more experience of configuring reporting answer this aspect for you.

[HoagyM]

...and there it is! Thanks Nick, and thanks especially for such a prompt reply.

Re such notes being not included in a report, I do find it a bit odd that such exceptions are made. I want an option, for an individual, or family, or indeed the whole tree, to be able to just say "include everything" and produce a report of everything FH has on that individual, family, whatever. I thought by ticking everything on the report options I'd get that, but it appears not.

Without such an option, it seems there's a danger of information that has been entered on FH just getting lost/forgotten about??

[AdrianBruce]

re The witness stuff for a marriage in a Narrative Report... This is a bit of a brain dump but here's what I have:

The sentence template for the marriage event is:

<para>{individual} married {spouse/her/him} {date} ({date:DAY_OF_WEEK}) <at {address}> {place} {role=AfterBannsByLicence}. <The best man was {role(single)=Best man}. > <The best man (as well as a witness) was {role(single)=Best man & witness}. ><{role(single)=bridesmaid} was the bridesmaid. ><{role(plural)=bridesmaid} were bridesmaids. ><The marriage was witnessed by {role=witness}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=minister}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=priest}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=rabbi}. >

That's pretty much as supplied by Calico Pie but with some added tweaks by myself including:

• <para> for formatting;
• {role=AfterBannsByLicence} - this is normally a "name only" witness containing the text "after banns" or "by licence". Not really a witness, of course, but a means of getting the text in;
• {role(single)=Best man & witness} - a new witness role added by me to cover someone who carried out the two roles;

This is the Role Sentence Template for the Witness Role:

<para>{individual} witnessed the marriage of {principal} {date}< at {address}>< {place}>. {=GetFieldText(GetContextItem(WITNESS_LINK),"%~.NOTE2%")}

This appears in the narrative report for the witness and the .NOTE2 bit will put the Witness Note in.

As an aside, I find there is no general way of handling this sort of stuff as it very much depends on how you think you want the stuff to appear, and two different types of witnessed facts may have radically different presentation in reports. It's just whatever you feel you want.

[AdrianBruce]

... I thought by ticking everything on the report options I'd get that, but it appears not. ...

As I said above, the problem with the witness notes and narrative reports is that different people want different stuff out of different fact types. I strongly suspect that if CP did try to print everything, it would look an appalling mess. Maybe they did try, it did look appalling, so they backtracked and let us think...

Quite often I'll set (or alter) my witness sentences so that all the notes are held against the principal's fact and the witness' report repeats that, so there's one single set of notes seen against each of the principal and all witnesses. I do that for Probate events as somehow it reads easier like that - executors seldom stand alone, as it were.

But with the witnesses for marriages, I found that approach was too much for the witnesses simply because I'm liable to add a load of stuff to the marriage event about how the couple met, that simply isn't appropriate for a bridesmaid at the wedding, say. Hence I used Witness notes in that case.

[fhtess65]

None of the marriage records I've seen have EVER stated someone was the "best man" - and what if both witnesses are male? Which would be the "best man"? Seems a bit odd to me to include that assumption that a male witness serves as a best man and to include that statement in the sentence template. Or am I missing marriage records where this is expressly stated?

Teresa

re The witness stuff for a marriage in a Narrative Report... This is a bit of a brain dump but here's what I have:

The sentence template for the marriage event is:

<para>{individual} married {spouse/her/him} {date} ({date:DAY_OF_WEEK}) <at {address}> {place} {role=AfterBannsByLicence}. <The best man was {role(single)=Best man}. > <The best man (as well as a witness) was {role(single)=Best man & witness}. ><{role(single)=bridesmaid} was the bridesmaid. ><{role(plural)=bridesmaid} were bridesmaids. ><The marriage was witnessed by {role=witness}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=minister}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=priest}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=rabbi}. >

[AdrianBruce]

None of the marriage records I've seen have EVER stated someone was the "best man" - and what if both witnesses are male? Which would be the "best man"? Seems a bit odd to me to include that assumption that a male witness serves as a best man and to include that statement in the sentence template. Or am I missing marriage records where this is expressly stated?

Teresa]

Ah! What you are missing is what you couldn't ever know, which is that that sentence was created expressly to record my parents' wedding and one of them verbally told me that my uncle was best man, while the certificate also records that he was a witness.

I remember thinking recently that it was almost impossible to know who was the best man at a wedding - or who gave the bride away. (By the way, these are terms from the Anglican tradition and I've no idea if they are used elsewhere). The only chance seems to be if a newspaper reports those facts. Or you get first hand statements.

Because I concocted the sentence for one specific wedding, it doesn't cover all circumstances. I've seen newspaper reports of decidedly unusual choices for who gave the bride away. Given that the primary role there is simply to walk the bride down the aisle, the scope is huge!

[HoagyM]

Thanks for all this Adrian, really appreciated - will set some time aside to have a play with it.

[tatewise]

If you really want Reports of everything in your FH Project database then use Publish > Record Detail Reports.
For any Individual you will need to report on their Individual record, their Family record(s), their associated Source records, etc, etc...

[AdrianBruce]

If you really want Reports of everything in your FH Project database then use Publish > Record Detail Reports. ...

Time is never wasted when looking at reports that I never use so had forgotten about, thanks.

However, the wrinkle that I'd just like to add, may or may not be obvious - based on the reports for my father and uncle, my uncle's details as a witness are not in his report - they are in the report for the principal - i.e. the records of my uncle's role as a witness at my parents' wedding are in my parents' report(s). That may be a statement of the obvious to those of us who know how the GEDCOM is structured or entered - it may be less obvious to others.