Family Historian User Group

Hi, is it possible to perhaps color code text (even if background color) or otherwise display information in FH so that you can tell at a glance what you have substantiated using actual source documents?

Sometimes I collect and enter info culled from the internet that I haven't yet researched myself. Any suggestions?

ID:2940

In diagrams you can colour text and boxes according to record flags (see diagram options) but of course that depends on having a convention (and sticking to it) for adding flags to substantiated (or unsubstantiated) records (and always knowing what you mean by substantiated).

In the record list you can add columns for flags or list membership, but can't do anything about the colour.

We use source records for someone else's tree and so on, which have the advantage that they can apply to individual events and attributes rather than just the whole record, and can be auto-cited when you're copying stuff from somewhere.

But the problem with all this it seems to me is that often the content of a record is a mixture of information gleaned from a variety of sources, for example the censuses show you a person of that name existed, born at about a particular year. A birth certificate tells you someone of that name was born on a particular date and their father's name. Someone else's tree tells you that someone of that name married your great grandmother, and so on.

The difficult bit when looking back at a piece of the tree you did a year ago (which neither source citations nor flags really deal with) is not so much where did you get the specific data from, but how do you know they're all the same person, i.e. the relationships rather than the individuals on the tree.

ChrisBowyer said:
The difficult bit when looking back at a piece of the tree you did a year ago (which neither source citations nor flags really deal with) is not so much where did you get the specific data from, but how do you know they're all the same person, i.e. the relationships rather than the individuals on the tree.

Yes, indeed.

If you have done the analysis then you can make notes and refer to the interlocking bits of information, but what do you do if you haven't had time to do the analysis yet?

I have a census record with a woman whose name appears nowhere else in that form. She is listed as the mother of the head of household. Is she the mother, or could it be the mother-in-law?

I sometimes use named lists to flag individuals or records like this for future study, and make a note of what needs to be substantiated elsewhere.

That helps with picking up where you left off, but it doesn't allow you to look at your data as a whole and have the unchecked data pop out at you.

Jan

jmurphy said:
Is she the mother, or could it be the mother-in-law?

Or step-mother, or even grandmother?

ChrisBowyer said:
jmurphy said:
Is she the mother, or could it be the mother-in-law?
Or step-mother, or even grandmother?

Indeed -- the evidence is so scanty, it is difficult to tell. One of those cases of one bit here, another bit there (just as described above).

In the 1920 Census, Emma (head of household) is 45. Her 'mother' is 80.

Jan