Tweaking the Witness sentence

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 15 Mar 2012 18:07

Hi,
I'm using AS 3.0.0 to enter marriages.

I've figured out how to create associated individuals as witnesses to marriages.

Didn't like the sentence written in the individual's fact list (i.e., She experienced Witness: on in

So, I tried to change it.
The good news: the note to the event is what I want.
The bad news: the sentence that goes with it is still the same

I can't figure out where to tweak the sentence. The sentence that I have associated with the event 'Witness' is different than what appears.

Thanks

ID:6015

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 15 Mar 2012 20:03

Where did you alter the sentence? If you altered it in the local record then it will only be changed in that record. To change it globally go to:

Tools>Work with Fact Sets...

Make sure you have selected in the Fact Set selector; find the Fact you want to change and click the Properties button. You can then globally change the sentence the the Template section.

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 15 Mar 2012 20:17

No go.

The template in the fact definition now reads:
{ASSOCPERSON.FULL} was witness to the {SOURCETYPE} of {KEYPERSON.FULL} to {SPOUSE.FULL}

The 'local note' in AS now reads:
{ASSOCPERSON.FULL} was witness to the {SOURCETYPE} of {KEYPERSON.FULL} to {SPOUSE.FULL}

My local note is great, the sentence (pulled from FH) is still experiencing witnesses.

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 15 Mar 2012 20:30

Also related to the facts that are logged for individuals contained in the marriage record who are not the bride & groom:

The occupation of the father is recorded (good)
but only with the date - no event associated with it (uh)

That can look pretty weird when the children are marrying after the parent's death.

How can I persuade AS to record more info?

Eg:
Now -
Fact: 27 Apr 1856 Occup. Laborer
Sentence: On 27 Apr 1856 he was a laborer

What I'd like to see -
Fact 27 Apr 1856 Occup Laborer
Sentence: On 27 Apr 1856 he was cited as a laborer on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter, Jane Smith

Looks so much better, given he died in 1846!

I realize I may need to create a new event, say CitationOccup

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 15 Mar 2012 20:41

I don't think changing the Fact sentence globally will change any facts that have already been created. Have you tried creating a new marriage record in AS to see if the correct sentence is created?

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 15 Mar 2012 20:47

yes - I changed it to the above templates, and re-stored the marriage. Got another Fact entry, saying the same as it had before

johnmorrisoniom · Post by **johnmorrisoniom** » 15 Mar 2012 21:41

The sentence with 'experienced' in it is generated by the sentence template inside FH. Not in AS.
as Gerry said, go to work with fact sets and follow his instructions to choose your marriage witness and to change the fact set sentence template in the fact set. Any changes will only take affect after you save.
My sentence (In FH) is:

{individual} witnessed the marriage {date} {place}

The {Value} part is supplied by AS

Post by **NickWalker** » 15 Mar 2012 21:54

By default Ancestral Sources just records the witness details in the local note of the marriage. Your comments suggest you've set up your own associated individual type to use a local event instead. Can you confirm that is the case?

You have also said:

The template in the fact definition now reads:
{ASSOCPERSON.FULL} was witness to the {SOURCETYPE} of {KEYPERSON.FULL} to {SPOUSE.FULL}

If you've entered that into Family Historian then it certainly isn't go to work as those keywords only apply in Ancestral Sources. Perhaps you mean to have something like:

{note} {date}

which would display the contents of the custom event's local note followed by 'on 1 Mar 1800' (or whatever the date is).

Ancestral Sources isn't going to be able to help you to get sentences like 'On 27 Apr 1856 he was cited as a laborer on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter, Jane Smith'. This is the kind of thing where you would need to either manually edit the sentence in family historian on a fact by fact basis or possibly you could type some of this into the local note of the occupation and edit the fact template sentence for occupations to include the note in s similar way described earlier.

I will be releasing an update to AS in the not too distant future that will handle occupations for dead parents in a better way than currently - either by not including the date at all or by allowing 'before' marriage date, or possibly before death date.

Post by **tatewise** » 15 Mar 2012 22:12

The main thing that has been overlooked is that AS doe NOT create a Custom Event definition in the Fact Sets to allow the sentence Template to be defined.

The AS Help says:

Custom Event: This will create an event fact for the associated individual with the specified event name and local note. Although the created event is accepted by Family Historian, the fact sentence is usually non-sensible. To correct this, a new matching fact should be created in Family Historian using Tools > Work with Fact Sets to define the sentence template, etc.

The AS Tutorial in the Knowledge Base says:

Although this Nanny custom Event may be satisfactory, it can be improved by creating a new Custom Event within Family Historian using Tools > Work with Fact Sets to define a Sentence Template.
Conversely, if you already have a suitable Custom Event/Attribute in Family Historian, then ensure the Event:/Attribute: name matches, and for a Custom Attribute the Value: field is appropriate.

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 15 Mar 2012 23:58

Please keep in mind that I still feel overwhelmed. Simple sentences and ideas are appreciated...

By default Ancestral Sources just records the witness details in the local note of the marriage. Your comments suggest you've set up your own associated individual type to use a local event instead. Can you confirm that is the case?

Yes, I believe I followed the tutorial correctly, and created associated individual set up

I've been experimenting a bit more: I've changed the sentence associated with the 'Witness' fact (yes, a custom event). Even tho I change the template, removing the word 'experience', it still returns in the event statement when AS stores the event.

I noticed that the fact actually shows up as 'Witness:' so i deleted 'Witness' and created a fact 'Witness:' with a template that does NOT contain the word 'experience' - the word still appears, altho my sentence seems to be there, too. The template reads:
{individual} was a witness on {date}

Which becomes:
He experienced Witness: John Smith on 19 April 1825 in Hackney, London.

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 16 Mar 2012 00:05

If you've entered that into Family Historian then it certainly isn't go to work as those keywords only apply in Ancestral Sources. Perhaps you mean to have something like:

{note} {date}

which would display the contents of the custom event's local note followed by 'on 1 Mar 1800' (or whatever the date is).

Oh, the note has what I want. I'll try it.

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 16 Mar 2012 00:16

No go. I'm still getting
He experienced Witness: John Smith on 19 April 1825 in Hackney London

Here's my custom fact in FH:

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 16 Mar 2012 00:34

If I manually change the sentence (i.e., the fact that was stored for the specific event) then I get a sentence that I like.

So, the problem appears to be my FH set up - any suggestions?

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 16 Mar 2012 00:39

I will be releasing an update to AS in the not too distant future that will handle occupations for dead parents in a better way than currently - either by not including the date at all or by allowing 'before' marriage date, or possibly before death date.

Yes, I'll probably have to manually enter the fact that I want: to me, it's important to tie that occupation to the record that is derived from. When I have ancestors with common names, or ancestors with children of different parents but same time period, occupation further clarifies which individual is involved.

Post by **tatewise** » 16 Mar 2012 01:37

The most important thing you are getting wrong is the Event: field in the AS Associated Individual Type definition.

This MUST be the name of your Custom Event in the FH Fact Definition.
In your case it is just Witness without anything else.
With that adjustment everything should fall into place, and your FH sentence Template will come into play.

Otherwise, the extra text like {ASSOCPERSON.FULL} will create a Custom Event named Witness: John Smith or Witness: Joe Bloggs or whoever the associated person happens to be, and never match up with your Custom Event name of Witness.

Regarding following the Tutorials, I suspect you jumped into the In File Custom Fact Tutorial without working through the preceding Getting Started Tutorial and In File Associations Tutorial that set up the necessary conditions.
Perhaps I need to include a bit more guidance and advice in these tutorials to bring out the salient points.

Overloaded · Post by **Overloaded** » 16 Mar 2012 03:10

I suspect you jumped into the In File Custom Fact Tutorial without working through the preceding Getting Started Tutorial and In File Associations Tutorial that set up the necessary conditions.

your assumption is not correct

Post by **NickWalker** » 16 Mar 2012 11:15

Whatever the reasons, the problem is, as Tatewise said, that (quite reasonably!) the event name in Ancestral Sources has to identically match the event name in Family Historian. So it needs to be Witness in Ancestral Sources with no colons, no keywords, etc.

Post by **tatewise** » 16 Mar 2012 11:27

Overloaded,
OK, in that case, I need to make it clearer that the AS Event: name field MUST match the FH Name: field in the Fact Definition.

Nick,
The AS Associated Individual Types editor correctly inhibits the << 'add selected template tag' button for the Event: name and Attribute: name fields.
However, AS still translates any template tag entered in that field, as illustrated in the examples above for Witness: {ASSOCPERSON.FULL} that translates to Witness: John Smith which results in default FH Fact Sentence He experienced Witness: John Smith ...!
I think AS should not translate such tags, and if left untranslated would create a Custom Event named literally Witness: {ASSOCPERSON.FULL} with default sentence He experienced Witness: {ASSOCPERSON.FULL} ... that would be much easier to recognise as a mistake.

Post by **NickWalker** » 16 Mar 2012 13:47

tatewise said:
Nick,
The AS Associated Individual Types editor correctly inhibits the << 'add selected template tag' button for the Event: name and Attribute: name fields.
However, AS still translates any template tag entered in that field, as illustrated in the examples above for Witness: {ASSOCPERSON.FULL} that translates to Witness: John Smith which results in default FH Fact Sentence He experienced Witness: John Smith ...!
I think AS should not translate such tags, and if left untranslated would create a Custom Event named literally Witness: {ASSOCPERSON.FULL} with default sentence He experienced Witness: {ASSOCPERSON.FULL} ... that would be much easier to recognise as a mistake.

That's a good suggestion. I had assumed that the fact that the << button was disabled would be enough to indicate it shouldn't be used. But clearly not

Post by **tatewise** » 16 Mar 2012 14:03

The scenario is that Witness: {ASSOCPERSON} is perfectly valid and sensible for some Method: options such as Local note and Association struct. - both ways.
If the user then changes from those to either Custom Event or Custom Attribute without creating a New template, then they inherit the name Witness: {ASSOCPERSON} and may not realise that the {ASSOCPERSON} keyword is irrational in that context.

Post by **NickWalker** » 16 Mar 2012 14:28

Yes, I think it would make more sense to clear that field if changing to attribute or event. Which I'll try to remember to implement for the next version.

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