Family Historian User Group

I have just started entering details of wills. Some of these contain the address of the person making the will. I have noticed that when I enter this address it then appears as the address of the witness in the corresponding witness event in the fact tab. Screenshot for a witness below. Is this behaviour by design? I see that I can get round it by using a residence fact for the principal and the witnesses but that does seem a clunky way round the problem.
The address shown is that of the principal, William Bearder, and not the witness Rosina.

Any help would be appreciated.

John

You are correct in what you have written, John. When viewing Witness events from the perspective of the witness rather than the principal, the data shown in the fact window belongs to the principal. This has caught me unawares a number of times, especially with marriage witnesses and death certificate informants.

I don't believe there is any way to stop the witness fact appearing as it does, but as you've correctly deduced, you could add a residence fact in for the witness if that information is available in the will.

I agree with Adrian, though I was mildly surprised by the scenario, to the extent that I had to double check it.

I think that the reason I was surprised is that, for whatever reason, either my witness facts like that don't have any address details or they have them but they obviously belong to the principal's event. Either way round, neither causes any issues - and my witness sentences are set up to avoid any oddities in narrative reports.

For instance, I've never recorded beneficiaries as witnesses to wills (they are mentioned in the Notes to the Will event). There is the potential for confusion over witnesses in FH terms who carry out the role of witness in real life and witnesses in FH terms who have the role of beneficiary in real life. However, I don't think that potential for confusion is why I don't do it - instead it's because X could be named as a beneficiary in the will but have died before they inherit. Or even the converse, in that X, child of Y, is a beneficiary but only because the will says "Any children of Y".

For whatever reason, I would (in this case) record Rosina in the witness role of beneficiary against the Probate event of William's will. That Probate event will have an address of the Probate office in question so it's obviously not Rosina's residence in the FH user interface.

The only witnesses I record against a will event are the, erm, witnesses.

It may be too late for you to alter things or you prefer your methods but it may be worth thinking about.

Thanks to Adrians for your input. Adrian II suggests an interesting way round it for a beneficiary (and presumably other Witness Roles) but I think until CP can alter the underlying coding we're stuck with using a Residence fact primarily because people change address. I'm an executor in wills and in both cases my current address is not the one set out in the will. I'll do a wish list request.

IMO the Address & Place fields associated with any Fact have to be taken in context.
Most of the Facts recorded will not have anyone's current address but will be whatever address is pertinent to the Fact.

Mike,

We're agreeing. I was (not very clearly) commenting on Adrian's suggestion of recording an executor's address at the time of probate rather than at the time of making the will. Their address might have changed in the meantime and therefore best to record the address at the time of the original event. Of course, addresses in many wills (and probate events) simply aren't present but having majored on it in the last few weeks I'm in the luxurious position of having to decide how to handle witness addresses in several (mainly recent) wills I've turned up.

Best wishes,

John

UnionJohn wrote: ↑

11 Apr 2023 15:47

... Adrian's suggestion of recording an executor's address at the time of probate rather than at the time of making the will. ...

Err - no, that wasn't my suggestion. I was suggesting recording the beneficaries (and appointed executors) at the time of getting probate. But the address against the probate event can only be the address where probate was obtained. There is, after all, only one such address.

Similarly, the address against the will event is the address where the will was written - or proved.

If you want to record residences of witnesses to the will, executors, beneficiaries, those have to be recorded as residence events against each witness, executor, beneficiary, dated at whatever date is applicable to your source of information. To try and add the address to the witness details doesn't sound a very good idea to me - if it is a residence address, then it needs to end up in the residence event, like all other residences - to get there from a witness dialog would be very hard work for the software, as well as clogging up the witness dialog box.

My surprise was that it did look like Rosina had an address created in her facts from her role as a witness. But as Adrian #I explained, that isn't so, you're just getting a window onto the principal's event, so the adress isn't hers, but William's.

Sorry for not understanding your desire to record the residences of witnesses.

I agree with Adrian. Trying to add the Address of Fact Witnesses would get very clumsy.

John, I suspect your New Wish List Request may not get far.

Mike,

Having read the comments and had a thunk about it I'm happy to run up the white flag.

Best wishes,

John