Family Historian User Group

Just starting to use AS after today's FHUG news.  Looks excellent, but I think that there are a few limitations that would make me reluctant to use it all the time.  Of course, I hope that I just haven't figured work-arounds yet.

1) Smart dates is a good idea.  However, I personally feel more comfortable stating that that a 10 year old in the 1881 census was born 'btw 1870 and 1871'.  Is that possible to set as an option?

2) This one is more idiosyncratic: At the moment the program forces you to enter a full census date before you can save the file - I'd like to be able to be able to enter the date in any valid FH format (eg just the month and year) and still be allowed to save.  Is there a way of overriding this particular policing by the program? (Incidentally the reason I do that is that I use the 'Residence' entry rather than the 'Census' field, and it sounds a bit daft in a narrative report saying that someone is resident on just a particular night)

3) Is it possible to add a note to an individual or event?  For instance, if my key person is a servant with a family, I don't want to add all those non-relatives to my family file - I just want to add a note at the census or (for me) residence entry listing who my key person was staying with.  Can I do that?  I notice that there is an option to enter a non-relative, but the program still seems to add the person as a new individual record.  Oh, and then I couldn't find a way of deleting that person from within AS (even before saved) - is that possible?

4) Is it possible to create more source types?  For instance, I would like to have '1881 Census' as a source type rather than just generic 'Census'.

5) At the moment, it appears that AS isn't adding flags when I create a new entry.  Is that because I've set it to record a residence event rather than a census one?  If so, is it possible to tell AS to enter a flag every time I save a person in AS instead?

I do appreciate that everyone works slightly differently in ways that work for them, and I applaud the options that have been included thus far.

Thanks,
Neal

ID:5122

Neal said:
Just starting to use AS after today's FHUG news.  Looks excellent, but I think that there are a few limitations that would make me reluctant to use it all the time.  Of course, I hope that I just haven't figured work-arounds yet.

As you've suggested later in your post I can't cater for every single thing that someone might decide to do. A.S. deals with the common (and a few uncommon!) ways that people record data but often adding support for these unusual methods takes a lot of extra time that frankly I think would be better spent adding functionality that is going to be used by more people. Where possible I do try to add further options but I have to stop somewhere - also do remember that this software is free and developed in my very limited spare time.

1) Smart dates is a good idea.  However, I personally feel more comfortable stating that that a 10 year old in the 1881 census was born 'btw 1870 and 1871'.  Is that possible to set as an option?

No this isn't an option currently. Census ages are notoriously inaccurate. e.g. people who state they are 43 might easily really be 45, 48, etc. If you use a between date you can't specify that the date is approximate or calculated and so it appears you are stating as a fact that they were born 'between 1870 and 1871'.

2) This one is more idiosyncratic: At the moment the program forces you to enter a full census date before you can save the file - I'd like to be able to be able to enter the date in any valid FH format (eg just the month and year) and still be allowed to save.  Is there a way of overriding this particular policing by the program? (Incidentally the reason I do that is that I use the 'Residence' entry rather than the 'Census' field, and it sounds a bit daft in a narrative report saying that someone is resident on just a particular night)

Again no this isn't currently possible. The reason for this is that a census doesn't say where someone was resident for a period of time, it says where they were staying on that particular night - so I don't see why it sounds daft?! I always caution people against recording their data inaccurately just to satisfy a particular report. If the report isn't doing a good enough job then it is the report that is at fault: make sure your data is correct and ask Calico (or whoever you use for your narrative reports) to add options to allow you to produce reports in the required format.

3) Is it possible to add a note to an individual or event?  For instance, if my key person is a servant with a family, I don't want to add all those non-relatives to my family file - I just want to add a note at the census or (for me) residence entry listing who my key person was staying with.  Can I do that?  I notice that there is an option to enter a non-relative, but the program still seems to add the person as a new individual record.

That is what the source text or source note is for. In your servant example, I would just have the servant in the grid on their own, then press Auto to produce the source text and then manually edit the source text (or source note) to say something like: 'Servant of John Jones and family, Farmer:'. You can include as little as much info as you like in the source text, but there is no need to add the individuals to your file.

Oh, and then I couldn't find a way of deleting that person from within AS (even before saved) - is that possible?

Yes under Edit menu->Review/Remove individual data changes

4) Is it possible to create more source types?  For instance, I would like to have '1881 Census' as a source type rather than just generic 'Census'.

You can change the generic source type to anything you like (Tools->Options->Census settings), but this type is applied to all census sources you create. If you need to specify this depending on the census year then you'll need to do this yourself manually in Family Historian.

5) At the moment, it appears that AS isn't adding flags when I create a new entry.  Is that because I've set it to record a residence event rather than a census one?  If so, is it possible to tell AS to enter a flag every time I save a person in AS instead?

I think it ought to work if you've set the flags up in Census->Census Flag Settings? You won't be able to use the Census Flag Check functions though to add flags to existing records.

I do appreciate that everyone works slightly differently in ways that work for them, and I applaud the options that have been included thus far.

Thanks

Nick

Some additional comments:

4) Source Type
Nick, would it be easy to support some keywords like {YEAR} in the Census Source Type in the next A.S. release, similar to the way the {SOURCETYPE keyword is supported in the Baptism Source Type?

5) Flags
As long as the Census > Census Flag Settings option is used, then a Flag is added to the Individual. (I have just tested it). Note that Flags are only ever added to Individual records as a whole, not to specific Events.