Family Historian User Group

William Clegg's booklet on recording BMDs in FH advises that you use the citation Entry Date field for 'today's date', i.e. recording when you actually entered the citation into FH.
Elsewhere (possibly somewhere on one of these forums, but I can't find it now!) I recall reading that, when recording census data, the citation Entry Date should be used for the Census Date.
Whilst I appreciate that fields can be used in different ways, I feel sure that one ought to be consistent in using the Entry Date either for 'today's date' or for the date of the source citation.
Perhaps I'm confused over nothing here; does it actually matter which approach is used?  Or is there a preferred/advisable use for the Entry Date field?
Clarification from those with vastly more experience of FH than me would be very helpful.  Thanks in anticipation.
Kind regards, Stuart

ID:6594

IMHO Consistency is the main thing to go for.
Personally, I have always put today's date in the citation date field, as the Fact date goes with the fact.
That way, when I come back to a record years or months or days later, just looking at a citation will tell me when it was entered.
I know other's prefer to work differently. As long as you are consistent in your approach it is down to personal preference.

As has indeed been said elsewhere in FHUG, the GEDCOM 5.5 Standard is very clear about the intended use of the Citaion Date:

The date that this event data was entered into the original source document.

Certainly the most important thing is to be consistent.

John Morrison said: I have always put today's date in the citation date field, as the Fact date goes with the fact.

But consider a Census Record taken on say 2 April 1911. It could be cited by Birth Events whose Fact Dates bear no relationship to the Census Date.

Similarly, Baptism Records and Death Certificates may be cited by Birth Events, again with quite different Dates.

So I set the Citation Date to the Date of the Source Document rather than Today's Date.

If you use Today's Date as the Citation Date, and later add material such as a Multimedia Image to a Source Record, do you change the Citation Date?

Note that the Source Record last Updated Date usually records when the data (and thus the Citations) were entered.

Many thanks to you all.
Whilst you may be offering conflicting advice, the reasoning behind your differing approaches is very useful in helping me to determine which approach I should take.  I wasn't aware that the GEDCOM standard actually stated how fields should be used, but obviously it wouldn't be much use as a 'standard' if it didn't[smile]
I had recently started altering some of my citation dates to follow William Clegg's advice, but on balance I think I shall revert to my original use of this field and follow tatewise and the GEDCOM standard.
At least that will restore consistency to my records, which seems to be universally advisable.
Again, many thanks to you all, both for your helpfulness and for your speed of response.
Kind regards, Stuart

As others have said, consistency is the main thing.  But it is worth considering why the GEDCOM standard specifies that the field is to be used for the date of the original source entry.  GEDCOM is so named because its purpose is to enable GEnealogical Data COMmunication.  If you receive a GEDCOM file from another researcher it may be helpful to know the date of an original source entry,  but it is unlikely to be useful to know what the date was when another researcher happened to come across the information and type it into their computer!

William Clegg's booklet on recording BMDs in FH advises that you use the citation Entry Date field for 'today's date', i.e. recording when you actually entered the citation into FH.

This isn't the correct usage of the field and it is a shame this bad advice is being recommended to beginners. I've wondered before who is William Clegg? Is it a pseudonym? He writes a book about Family Historian and keeps it updated for new versions, but I can't remember seeing his name on here or on the Family Historian mailing list.

I have been following William Clegg's advice about putting today's date into the citation entry box. Is it possible to change the one's I've done to the document date instead?


Thanks
Jane

Yes, but you will have to change each one separately by hand.

I cannot think of any easy way of automating the changes.

This is a bit late, but better late than never! We (My History) have had a fresh look at the advice regarding the citation 'Entry date' and it's fairly obvious our author who writes under the pseudonym of 'William Clegg' got the advice wrong. With his permission we have amended the booklet 'Where to Record It; in Family Historian' to make the changes as pointed out by Mike Tate and Nick Walker. Our next reprint will contain the amendments.

We appreciate the input from both Nick and Mike.

Having followed the wrong path for so long I will make changes to my own tree to take the advice into account where original entry dates on source documents are known. However I'll probably carry on recording the current date of my own entries in the 'Entry date' field as I find it really useful.

Tony, that is indeed welcome news, and as you say, better late than never.

However, unless there are other recent changes, that may not be the only piece of advice to benefit from amendment.

There are comments on the booklet Where to Record It; in Family Historian throughout the Source help (16865) thread posted earlier this year. Your opinion on those comments would be welcomed.