Family Historian User Group

As yet, I've not downloaded GedCom census, but am now contemplating whether to start using it as everyone gives it rave reviews.

What I am dithering about is how it will fit in with my own method of recording census details. I have two main questions that I need answers to before I decide to start using gedcom census. First of all an explanation of my current method.

I have one source for each census year. At the moment I have between 350 and 700 citations linked to each of these sources (giving a current total of over 3800 citations).

I like to be able to see at a glance on the events window when someone is on the census as a couple or as an individual. Therefore when I find a couple on the census I enter the census event as a 'census as family', and then each of their children with them gets an event 'census as individual' with the same citation. I also find an advantage of this is that on the narrative reports, you simply get the one sentence for when a couple are together on a census, rather than the repetition of the same information for each person.

I use the 'Where within source' field to enter the precise folio and page details. I do not use the text from source to actually transcribe the detail, but I will use the note against the event to record anything extra (e.g. I note any visitors or servants with them if I have not been able to work out who they are (they often turn out to be relatives in the case of farm servants). I find this method works well with reports as the note can be included in the narrative, whereas the folio location appears in the source section, keeping the main part easy to read.

I do not download images of the census records and do not wish to link them into my file. I have two reasons for this. First it saves on an awful lot of filing and storage issues, making backing up my files easier. If I need to refer back to them, I can easily look up the reference on Ancestry (as can any other keen researcher who I send reports to). Second, I'm debating setting up a family tree website, and once you start publishing on the web, it can get you into copyright problems, as I understand they are crown copyright (or ancestry, not sure excatly which)

So my two questions are:
Does Gedcom census allow entry of 'census as family' events, or does it create an 'census as individual' event for each member of a couple?

Is there an easy way of converting my existing census events in Family Historian to be in the gedcom census style? The thought of having to convert 3800 events manually puts me off the whole idea. I think there have been other threads on this topic, so I will look through them, but if anyone has thought of something new, please let me know.

ID:1963

Hi

Answer 1: Gedcom Census doesn't support 'census as family', it creates individual census events for each person. As I understand it a family consists of a couple (usually) and their children and so census events for families don't really work as children tend to come and go between census records. I realise you have worked around this and that the narrative report deals with this quite well but I would find the mix between individual and family events very confusing personally. This isn't a criticism as everyone does things in their own way and I'm not saying that my methods are the definitive way to do it. All my census records used to be stored in local notes before I moved to FH and developed Gedcom Census but then I probably only had around 2000 events to create.

Answer 2: Gedcom Census doesn't have facilities to convert from what you have already done although it sounds as though the only thing you do which Gedcom Census does differently is use the family census event. If you have a play with Gedcom Census and feel that it would benefit you then if you would like to send your file to me I could see whether it would be possible to write a program to convert the family census events to individual ones, but no promises as it might not be easy!

Best wishes

Nick Walker
Gedcom Census Developer

Thanks for the prompt reply Nick,
I think you're right, I shall have to download and have a play with it and see what I think.