Family Historian User Group

Hi All,

I have a couple of questions on data fields on sources which you may be able to help me with.

Using a Birth Certificate as an example:

Principal, Location and Address Fields. A lot of the time the Principal, Location and Address will be from the person in the Property Box. Is there any way to copy this data from the Property Box to the Source? I know I can copy and paste each field individually but I'm looking for a more automated way.

Date: I'm sure I've seen a discussion on this somewhere on the forum but couldn't find it. What Date do I put in the Date field on the Source - the date of the event (date of birth in this example), date the event was officially registered (probably not very useful), the date the document was created/issued (which could be years or decades after the event date). Anyone have any suggestions? I'm leaning towards the date the document was created/issued for 2 reasons. Firstly, the date of birth is recorded in the Birth Fact for the child, and if the Source is linked to someone other than the child (e,g, parents or siblings) then the I think the DOB is not really relevant. Secondly, the Source is describing the specific document (in this case, actually in my possession) and it's entirely possible, though not common, that a Birth Certificate created/issued on a different date may have different data (i.e., corrections were made).

Reference: For my Australian Birth Certificate example there are 3 "reference" numbers. First is the document number which is unique to this specific document. Another Birth Certificate issued at a different time will contain the same data but with a new document number. Second is the registration number actually on the document. Third is the Registration Number from the New South Wales BDM Register which is the number you quote when purchasing a certificate and is not on the document at all. My current thought is to record the NSW BDM Registration Number on another Source (using the Civil Registration Index template) and on the Birth Certificate Source use the document number as it "describes" the specific document I have to hand.

Any comments appreciated,

Glenn

Remember, the fields in the Source Template are there to help you and others relocate/locate the same source or a copy of it -- the fields are identifying the Source not the facts you've derived from it. And in reports, you can't easily go from the source to (say) the individual.

So, when you were searching for that source, what data were you most likely to know at least approximately? What data would help others searching for the same source? That's the data to put in the Template fields, even if it duplicates information in the Property Box. For a Birth certificate therefore, the Date would be the date of birth, not when the document was created. And for Reference I would use the NSW BDM Registration Number, even though it's not on the document.

If you want to record the others dates/reference numbers you can do it in Text from Source; for the date the document was created there's the Entry Date in the Citation Fields (which is what Gedcom intends that field to be used for).

(And no, there's no easier way to copy from Property Box to Source fields than copy and paste).

A possible solution to the data that needs to appear in two places (i.e. Individual Fact Fields and Source Template Fields) is to use Ancestral Sources, which captures such data once and uses templates & codes to save it in multiple fields in FH.
I think an appropriate Data Entry Assistant in FH could do much the same.

tatewise wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2022 11:27

I think an appropriate Data Entry Assistant in FH could do much the same.

It will do when I finish writing it!

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2022 08:33

Remember, the fields in the Source Template are there to help you and others relocate/locate the same source or a copy of it -- the fields are identifying the Source not the facts you've derived from it. And in reports, you can't easily go from the source to (say) the individual.

So, when you were searching for that source, what data were you most likely to know at least approximately? What data would help others searching for the same source? That's the data to put in the Template fields, even if it duplicates information in the Property Box. For a Birth certificate therefore, the Date would be the date of birth, not when the document was created. And for Reference I would use the NSW BDM Registration Number, even though it's not on the document.

If you want to record the others dates/reference numbers you can do it in Text from Source; for the date the document was created there's the Entry Date in the Citation Fields (which is what Gedcom intends that field to be used for).

(And no, there's no easier way to copy from Property Box to Source fields than copy and paste).

You're right Helen. Just because I have the birth certificate doesn't mean others will have access to my copy, so the Source needs to enable others to find the data from its original "source". I actually do something like this with repositories - even if I have book on my shelf, I record a public library as the repository; usually the national library. The assumption being that others may not have access to my personal bookshelf, particularly after I'm gone!

Thanks, Glenn.

tatewise wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2022 11:27

A possible solution to the data that needs to appear in two places (i.e. Individual Fact Fields and Source Template Fields) is to use Ancestral Sources, which captures such data once and uses templates & codes to save it in multiple fields in FH.
I think an appropriate Data Entry Assistant in FH could do much the same.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reminder about AS. I plan on using it eventually, but I want to understand the "native" way first.

There aren't any DEAs for Australia. I did think about trying to create some but other than some basic SQL, the last time I wrote code was 20 years ago, and that was COBOL!

Glenn.

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2022 11:33

tatewise wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2022 11:27

I think an appropriate Data Entry Assistant in FH could do much the same.

It will do when I finish writing it!

Hi Helen. If you mean DEAs for Australia, then I'm happy to test or provide examples of certificates, if needed.

Glenn

Woodg wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2022 11:58

tatewise wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2022 11:27

A possible solution to the data that needs to appear in two places (i.e. Individual Fact Fields and Source Template Fields) is to use Ancestral Sources, which captures such data once and uses templates & codes to save it in multiple fields in FH.
I think an appropriate Data Entry Assistant in FH could do much the same.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reminder about AS. I plan on using it eventually, but I want to understand the "native" way first.

There aren't any DEAs for Australia. I did think about trying to create some but other than some basic SQL, the last time I wrote code was 20 years ago, and that was COBOL!

Glenn.

These Some new Data Entry Assistant plugins for testing (V7) (18293) will work, although I'm working on a wider-rangin replacement. You'd have to create your own autotext for the Australian format records though.