Family Historian User Group

I'm bemused by the different types of marriage available when auto ing the text-which one is best to use? Currently I'm doing Scottish marriages and nowhere on the form can I find a space to enter the registration date and registrar? Has it disappeared from my version or was it never there?

It was never there. In England and Wales the marriage is/was always registered on the day of the ceremony. Scottish marriages are different, in that the ceremony and the registration can (and ususally do) take place on different dates. That is why the Scottish marriage records have a column for the date and place of registration and the signature of the Registrar. AS was developed to cater for the basic information which would be recorded for any marriage, anywhere. The additional bits of information specific to the records from particular countries or regions can be added via customised templates, or just entered manually.

Just to be clear, there is only one Marriage Date field in the Main Info tab, and no other Marriage dates on other tabs.
Also no Registrar field exists, although could perhaps be added as an Associated Individual.

In my AS there is an Auto-Text Template for SR Marriage Certificate 1855- (Scotland).
That auto-fills in the When Married year & day & month near the top.
It also auto-fills in the When Registered year & month at the bottom.
You can then edit that Auto-Text to mimic the certificate as is often necessary to created an accurate transcript.

I cannot be sure whether that (Scotland) Template is in AS by default, or I have obtained it from somewhere else.
There are related (Scotland) Templates for Birth and Death so I suspect they are all present by default.

BTW: See fhugdownloads:contents:template_marriage_autotext|> Ancestral Sources Template ~ Marriage Auto-Text that offers other Marriage Templates and could be supplemented with more Scottish Templates if needed.

Mike - I have the Scotland templates available on my AS so they must have come as defaults as I would not have downloaded them separately.

Mike, the matter of Scottish marriages having a separate registration date came up during a discussion in this topic File Naming Convention (15330) I wonder if you created the template yourself following that discussion?

Edit: I stand corrected! I have just found that I too have an auto-text template for SR Marriage Certificate 1855- (Scotland)

Yes I'm aware that there is an auto text for Scots marriages but where is the entry box for the date and registrar on the actual form?
Also which is the best auto text to use for other than Scots marriages?

As Mike indicated, there are no spaces for the Register Date and Registrar. The latter could be input using the Associated Individuals (Witnesses) processing and both can be manually added (in AS) to the Auto-Text output.

As far as as which is the best template for non-Scottish Marriages, it really depends on what the Source is (e.g. Marriage Certificate, Parish Registers, etc) as each have different information.

Usually I use the marriage certificate but find that after entering the details on the form, not all the details appear on the auto text?

Can't say that I have had any problems with "missing" data in the auto text, although it's always been indicated that the auto-text results will frequently need some manual work before saving. What pieces are missing?

John, that is absolutely normal for most (if not all) Auto-Text templates that show blanks for all required details.
Only the details from the form tabs are known to AS, so only those can be auto-filled in the Auto-Text.
Sometimes even those form details are not identical to what is on the actual Certificate, etc.
So it is nearly always necessary to manually edit the Auto-Text to create an accurate transcript.
The AS Help says:

The easiest way to transcribe a marriage record is to click on the Auto button. You will then be able to choose an appropriate template which will fill in the source text box with text including the contents of the various text entered into the fields described above. You may need to edit the source text to ensure an accurate transcription is made.

For example, you may have entered standardised Occupations in the form tabs (such as Agricultural Labourer), but in the Auto-Text would edit that to be an accurate transcript (such as Ag Lab). The same goes for details not on the form tabs, such as Marriage Registration Date and Registrar.

Sounds like it needs modifying to reflect what the majority of certificates record on them? Not a lot of point filling in a form only to find a lot is missing when you get to auto text?
Can you with your expertise Mike make a proper template that reflects things like witnesses, etc?

Just throwing this in as an aside - the intended (or, it was intended) replacement of the current paper registration forms for marriages in England & Wales will (or was going to) see the separation of the marriage ceremony from its registration, so that England & Wales will (maybe) match Scotland in having a separate, subsequent, registration. That might influence how anyone intends to modify things.

John, the templates already auto-fill all the relevant details from the form tabs, including Marriage Witnesses entered on the Further Info tab under Associated Individuals. However, if you define a new type of Associated Individual such as Registrar, then that will need to be added to the Auto-Text Templates. I cannot do that, because I don't know what you might have defined.

What cannot be auto-filled are details NOT entered via the form tabs (e.g. Scottish Registration Date).
I thought that was what you were referring to earlier, but it sounds like you believe other key details are missing.

Please provide specific cases of what you consider is missing.

Aye John,

To date, with the majority of my entries of data into FH I have used AS. Much of my research has been into Scottish families dating from the early 20th Century back to the mid 17th Century. So as to retain some consistancy in my FH records, inspite of the great variation in document form and content, I retain the image of the document to which I am refering (newspaper notice, Old Parish Register, Statutory Register, Certificate) and when completing the 'Auto' text part of the AS data entry, I select "Generic Marriage (data only)" as this is sufficient for my needs and I have the document image, if I should require anything else.

I use the similar "Generic ........... (data only)" options for my other event records as well. This applies to all my entries, regardless of their country of origin and mine include Scotland, England, India, USA and New Zealand to date.

This may not be to other peoples liking or suit their purpose, but is fine for my requirements. If anybody has any observations on this I shall be pleased to read them.

My regards, Bill

Yes Bill,
seems to be the sensible thing to do under the circumstances.