Family Historian User Group

Why does the above produce the actual fact date in the "Entry Date" of the source citation?

I have been led to believe that the entry date for source citations is the date in which you find the record for a fact (marriage found in indexes 20th July 2011) certificate bought gives marriage date of 29th September 1922. I would like to have the Entry Date for this example as 30th July 2011 being the date certified copy of marriage certificate received.

All comments and thoughts on this would be appreciated so that I can use the Entry Date field correctly.

Brian

Brian,

I don't use Citation Entry Date in Ancestral Sources, but I'm guessing that in the options for each fact type, you have the Citation Entry Date option selected and have it set to Event Date. Try setting it to Today's Date and see if that gives you what you want.

Bill

Brian, this has been discussed before: 'Entry Date' in citations (5564), Fields for Sources (9518), A 'Today' button (7361)
Although some users do enter the date the source document was discovered, that is of no genealogical interest.
The GEDCOM specification says:

ENTRY_RECORDING_DATE := <DATE_VALUE>
The date that this event data was entered into the original source document.

In other words the date the original source document was created.
e.g. For a Birth Certificate it is the date the details were registered.

Ancestral Sources > Tools > Options gives you some alternatives for the Citation Entry Date that can be chosen independently for each Source type (Census, Baptism, Marriage):

• Unticked so nothing is entered.
• Census/Event Date.
• Today's Date.

For these three Source types, the Event Date equals the date the original source document was created.

It will be interesting to see how Ancestral Sources handles these options for Birth and Death where the Event Date is usually earlier than the registration & creation date of the Certificate we use as the Source document.

Mike, Bill

Thank you for your replies to my query.

I will continue using the recording method set out by the GEDCOM specification, however, if I want to record the date a fact or certificate was discovered/received how and where would you record it?

I have a member of a family history society who is helping me and they use the discovered/received date in the Entry Date field. Will need to be careful not to appear more knowledgeable than my helper.

Brian

FYI:
I have found another part of the GEDCOM specification that gives an explanation of the purpose of the Citation Entry Date and how it applies to assessing the merits of a Source document.
The elapsed time between the Event Date and when the Event was recorded is important.

Data that allows an assessment of the relative value of one source over another for making the recorded assertions (primary or secondary source, etc.). Data needed for this assessment is how much time from the asserted fact and when the source event was recorded, ...

Where to record the discovered/received date?
One option is to rely on the last Updated date of Source Record, which will usually be soon after it was obtained.
Alternatively, add this discovered/received date to the Note field (or some other field) of the Source Record.
I know it will only be plain text rather than a formatted Date, but does that matter?
It is better recorded in the Source Record than the Citation anyway.
This is because there can be many Citations linking to the Source Record and the Date would have to be repeated in every one.

Mike

Thanks for your FYI reply, that is very helpful, I now have what I was looking for.

Brian