Family Historian User Group

Hi, probably another silly question from me i'm afraid but i've searched the forum and knowledge base and can't find what i'm looking for

I'd like to add the marriage date and place (not necessarily the actual church but the town) to the children in the family group sheet. I have name / spouse / children and then the details but not the date of the marriage ......
Probably too much to think about but is it possible to add the spouse name to the children of the child too

To add the marriage details for a child, use Options> Contents tab >Family Member Main Items. Then click Add, enter 'Marriage' in the label field and %INDI.FAMS[1]>MARR[1]% in the Data Ref field.

Probably too much to think about but is it possible to add the spouse name to the children of the child too

I don't think so, but I'm prepaed to be corrected!

Thanks Lorna, i've just tried that but can't get it to work. I copied and pasted your expression text

Whoops, sorry that just repeats the marriage details for the main family members (the husband or wife). (The marriage for the main couple is already shown in the summary at the top so it doesn't need to be repeated for each of them in their own sections.) I thought I had once managed to get the marriage details for the children to show, but I must have been mistaken, sorry.

Apologies, it's working now (i'd added it to the 'wrong' family group report ) I realise i need to add it to all the reports in the book, just chose the wrong example.
Is there a way to remove the word 'Married' though (sorry)

Refer to the details specifically using %INDI.FAMS[1]>MARR[1].PLAC% (%INDI.FAMS[1]>MARR[1].DATE%). That gives the place with the date in parentheses, so you can adjust to exactly how you want it displayed.

I'm glad it's working now. I got confused myself when I realised that it was repeating the marriage details for the main couple, when those details are already in the very top section of the report. I don't think it's possible to avoid that duplication if you want the children's marriage details to show.

Mark's suggestion is a good idea. It will leave the 'Marriage' label in place but omit the word 'married' so the line doesn't look repetitive.

Great thanks both. About to have dinner but will try later. I assume i can add 2nd / 3rd marriages by changing the number

Yes, as long as you change the appropriate instance number, i.e. FAMS[2] , FAMS[3], etc, and not the MARR.

Cheers Mike, makes sense now you say it

I thought this was such a good idea that I have started adding it to my own custom report.

One minor disadvantage of the way the report definitions work is that you have to add a lot of fields, using a tiny space in the editor. For example, the maximum number of spouses per individual in my main project is four, so that is eight separate fields to list both spouse and marriage details separately, but at least it only has to be done once. There is one minor curiosity in how FH treats missing data. In this example from the Sample Project, Spouse is defined with a data reference for the name, and the LifeDates() function for their dates, while Marriage is defined using two separate data references. In both case, the parentheses themselves are entered explicitly as character data.

If there are no dates for the spouse, FH is smart enough to realise that the LifeDates() function does not report anything, so it omits the parentheses automatically. However, if the marriage location is unknown, it keeps the blank parentheses, reporting it as below. Presumably it is a subtle difference in how FH treats blank data from data references and functions. Perhaps it can be tidied up with more exotic coding, but it's still a difference that could catch people out.

Hi Mark, how do you get your spouse / marriage to show like that? I only have spouse (1) spouse (2) and marriage twice with no number.

My ‘book’ with 42 chapters of ‘family group sheets’ is almost finished - this was a late addition - so there will be a lot of edits to make if i can follow your suggestion.

Mark, you are being fooled by the way FH handles 'empty' fields.
I suspect you have deleted the Place value for the Marriage but the empty Place field still exists.
That is what is causing the empty () brackets.

If you either open the All tab and delete the Place field or close and re-open FH then the brackets will automatically vanish.

This non-intuitive behaviour of FH regularly catches out even experienced users!

Dierdre, you need to change the Report > Options > Contents tab, Family Member Main Items as follows.

The predefined Spouses entry must be Hidden.

Add a Spouse item for as many of the following for the maximum number of spouses expected:
%INDI.~SPOU[1]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.~SPOU[1]>%))
%INDI.~SPOU[2]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.~SPOU[2]>%))
%INDI.~SPOU[3]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.~SPOU[3]>%))

Add a Marriage item for a similar number of marriage events:
%INDI.FAMS[1]>MARR.DATE% (%INDI.FAMS[1]>MARR.PLAC%)
%INDI.FAMS[2]>MARR.DATE% (%INDI.FAMS[2]>MARR.PLAC%)
%INDI.FAMS[3]>MARR.DATE% (%INDI.FAMS[3]>MARR.PLAC%)

Thanks Mike, easy when you say it! Hoping i don’t have all 42 chapters to individually update (only think one married 3 times but have several twos when spouses died young).

I am no good with these expressions

tatewise wrote: ↑

06 Feb 2023 10:41

This non-intuitive behaviour of FH regularly catches out even experienced users!

Indeed it does! It's exactly the subtlety I encountered when I was first learning OO programming and models (nothing to do with model railways) many years ago - there is a difference between being empty and being full of nothing!

It is more of a difference between an empty container and no container at all.
e.g.
Empty bucket versus no bucket, or empty Place field versus no Place field/tag, or empty Lua variable = '' versus no variable = nil.

Being pedantic, I think empty vs containing nothing is closer to object orientation theory, but I agree that no bucket versus empty bucket is a better metaphor for explaining it. Mind you, it’s nearly 25 years since I did that course (programming different coloured frogs to jump up and down using Smalltalk), so that’s probably about the limit of what I remember!

tatewise wrote: ↑

06 Feb 2023 11:07

Dierdre, you need to change the Report > Options > Contents tab, Family Member Main Items as follows.

The predefined Spouses entry must be Hidden.

Add a Spouse item for as many of the following for the maximum number of spouses expected:
%INDI.~SPOU[1]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.~SPOU[1]>%))
%INDI.~SPOU[2]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.~SPOU[2]>%))
%INDI.~SPOU[3]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.~SPOU[3]>%))

Add a Marriage item for a similar number of marriage events:
%INDI.FAMS[1]>MARR.DATE% (%INDI.FAMS[1]>MARR.PLAC%)
%INDI.FAMS[2]>MARR.DATE% (%INDI.FAMS[2]>MARR.PLAC%)
%INDI.FAMS[3]>MARR.DATE% (%INDI.FAMS[3]>MARR.PLAC%)

Is it possible to add the children to the appropriate marriage

I’m not at my desk at the moment so can’t try it out, but I can’t think of an easy way of grouping children by marriage. You could list children individually, but you would need an extremely large number of rows (3 marriages with say a dozen children rows under each one), so it’s probably impractical while still keeping sanity!

Not sure I understand your last point. None of the field labels should be numbered - just use Spouse and Marriage as the labels, without numbers, and you will get an output similar to my screenshot above.

Deirdre, if you want numbers to differentiate 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, Spouse, Marriage, etc, then put numbers in the item Label.

To add the Children of the partnerships then use an expression all on one line in one Item such as:
%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[1]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[1]>%))
%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[2]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[2]>%))
%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[3]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[3]>%))
%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[4]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[4]>%))
%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[5]>% (=LifeDates(%INDI.FAMS[1]>CHIL[5]>%))
Keep adding similar expressions for CHIL[6], CHIL[7], etc, to cater for the largest family.
That will list all the children on one line and wrap them onto subsequent lines.
If you want each child on a separate line then enter a separate Item for each child's expression.

For the 2nd Spouse/Marriage replace FAMS[1] with FAMS[2] throughout.
For the 3rd Spouse/Marriage replace FAMS[1] with FAMS[3] throughout, and so on for 4th, 5th, etc.

Mark1834 wrote: ↑

06 Feb 2023 19:49

Not sure I understand your last point. None of the field labels should be numbered - just use Spouse and Marriage as the labels, without numbers, and you will get an output similar to my screenshot above.

Sorry Mark i thought i edited it and delated the last bit before anyone saw it - I didn't think i could add the same label but tried it and it worked, so that's great, thanks

Mike, that's amazing thank you (again). I was worrying about adding 15 children, but they were all to one marriage, so I can leave that out. Will try it out on a family with several children in each marriage, but that's perfect. Not sure if there are any other things I can add to my book now

Edited: I will have to add them all in as I've hidden the 'children' field. But it repeats 'children' on each line if added separately

Mike, sorry I must be doing something wrong when I add lots of children to one line. The last one detailed loses the closing bracket on dates. I added 5 children in for now, will need more, but with 1 child he / she loses the closing bracket, 2 children the 2nd loses the closing bracket, with 5 the 5th one. I have deleted it and entered it again but the same thing happens.

Deirdre, when posting problems like this please include the Expression which is where the mistake exists.

I suspect you have not got double closing parentheses on every =LifeDates(...) function for each child.
i.e. (=LifeDates(%...%))
It is probably just the last one that is at fault.

A simple check with Expressions is to count the opening parentheses ( and then count the closing parentheses )
The two counts should usually be the same, because they are in matching balanced pairs.