Family Historian User Group

I've just started using Ancestral Sources and was wondering if it can can link a census event to other family members and include their roles similar to using the link icon in properties.

If I interpret you correctly, that's the whole reason for using AS. It will add the census event to all the people you add as being part of the census entry(s), and also occupation where added. It will also add residence for all the people too. I think there are options as to what attributes etc. are automatically added, so you can tailor what behaviours you would like.

I should probably tailor my own options more, but never seem to get round to remembering to play around with them.

Have you watched the videos on how to use Ancestral Sources? https://fhug.org.uk/kb/kb-article/ances ... es-videos/

I'm not sure I understand your question: are you wanting to create links to other family members who were not residing at the same place at the time of the census?

If by "...link a census event to other family members..." you are referring to others on the census schedule, then "yes" as AS creates a Source record and the census fact for each family member references that source record. If you have used AutoText then the source record will also include details of all the information you entered within AS (eg Relationship to Head of Household, Occupation, etc) in the "Text from Source" field.

It is also possible, if you modify the template itself, to have some information included on the local Note on the Census fact for each individual. I have mine set such that the local note includes the relationship, Occupation and marital status.

When I create a census event, I then use the link icon to select each person in the census and assign them their role. The event is now shared by each person. I can easily add or delete a person, and have FH add or remove the event for that person. Using AS, I'm getting no indication that the event is being shared. I have to then share the event and then delete the extra census event for each person. I guess I do it this way because of other genealogy programs I've used over the year that use shared events.

AS will auto create a Census fact in FH for each individual you have selected and included within the grid (in AS). If you have chosen to use "Method 1" then each individuals Census fact will reference the Source record that has been created within FH.

rcpettit wrote: ↑

23 Jul 2023 16:17

When I create a census event, I then use the link icon to select each person in the census and assign them their role. The event is now shared by each person. .... Using AS, I'm getting no indication that the event is being shared. I have to then share the event and then delete the extra census event for each person.

I think perhaps you are talking about creating witness roles for each person. If so, the answer is that AS doesn't do that. Each person in the census household has their own census event, and by looking at the text in the source record you can see who else was in the household. If you want to indicate each person's relationship to the head of the household you can add that in a note to their census event.

If I do that then I have multiple copies of the citation. Being a lumper, I use the witness to generate the roles and then the citation is lumped. If I need to go back and edit it, I only have to edit one copy. Looking at AS option 2, I don't see the ability to do this as pointed out before.

No, as I said in my previous reply, AS doesn't create witness roles for censuses. See this section in the Knowledge Base. (Scroll down to Census Fact Witnesses and Roles). Recording from a Census Record

There isn't a concept of a shared event in Family Historian:

• There are individual events which can have witnesses. But witness roles aren't really suitable for census records - witness roles in FH can't have ages recorded. All members of a census record were equal participants in the record, whereas witnesses are for events where there is a key person who experiences the event while the others were there but not equal participants (e.g. a marriage of a couple with witnesses, a burial of an individual with mourners as witnesses)
• There are family events and there is even a GEDCOM census family event but that doesn't work because it's unlikely that every member of the family are going to be present in every census entry (no one uses this method).

So the best solution is to have a separate census fact for each person (some people use a residence fact instead). This makes sense as it's exactly what you would do to record occupations for individuals that are mentioned in the census entry - you would create an occupation fact for each of them. If a birth date and place was mentioned in the census you would create birth facts for each person, etc. All of these facts link together to the same source (with a duplicated citation if you use method 2). AS makes this much easier to achieve.

Ok I understand what you're saying. But when I look up the citations for a source after using AS, I now have a ton of duplicate citations that if I make an error and need to correct, I'll have to edit each individual citation. So say if I had a family of 13 members, which I have several, that's 13 citations I need to edit if I make a mistake in enter data. I'm doing a do over on my genealogy was hoping AS would help out, so I'll do some more research on what is the best way to do this.

That's why most of the users of AS are splitters, not lumpers!

Agreed, however, IIRC, in his Intro to Ancestral Sources video, Nick demonstrates how "lumpers" can use AS successfully as well.

jelv wrote: ↑

23 Jul 2023 22:48

That's why most of the users of AS are splitters, not lumpers!

I'm unashamedly a lumper - for the same reason that I want just one record shared by a number of individuals.
So, to get around the issue of recording the data for witnesses in census events, I put the information about the individual in their witness notes, and display it using a witness sentence thus:
named as the spouse of {principal} in the census {date} {place} <<br>{=GetParagraph(%CUR~WITN.NOTE2%,1)}><<br>{=GetParagraph(%CUR~WITN.NOTE2%,2)}>
Granted - an individual's age doesn't show in the Focus Window if they are a witness in a census record, but I have learnt to look at the sentence for that information.
I use the following roles for my census events:
Head of household, Spouse, daughter, son, member of household, relative, neighbour, boarder, lodger. I also have residence role, as I have made a few named properties into "people" so I can track inhabitants or folk associated with that place through time.

cheers
Marlene

Lumpers with multiple Citations do NOT have to manually edit every duplicate copy.
Just edit one and then use the Citation Copy and Paste to update each copy and Delete the original.

See Wish List Ref 259 Method to find and edit identical citations and Vote for it.