Family Historian User Group

This has probably been covered before, but since I cannot find any reference to it, here we go:
1. Preferred names: My Dad is Abraham David Shaw. He never uses Abraham, so I decided to parenthesise his 1st name instead of using the 'preferred name field: (Abraham) David Shaw. That way people can see that he is Abraham but doesn't use it. I could use the pref name field but I want to all my reports Y charts etc to indicate that, technically, there's a hidden first name there, to help other researchers down the track ... Your thoughts please.
2. Nicknames (who doesn't have one (or even two) these days?). There's my cuz, Nachum Aryeh KARBAL. You know what he's called? 'Ari'. So I entered him in as (Nachum) Aryeh 'Ari' KARBAL. Is this self-evident etiquette, or am I confusing everyone? 'Should' I use the nickname option, or does that mean that my charts (and reports) will either show Ari OR Aryel but won't show both? How can I ensure that his name is shown in it's 'proper' form BUT ALSO reflects that fact that i. he doesn't use his first name AND ii. he nicknames his second name?
Is there a way that is built in to FH that enables everything to be shown in a self-explanatory way, without my having to set options one way or another each time I create a diagram (for one purpose or another - formal & less formal?
Is there an established genealogical etiquette? How have you FHUGgers done it?
Now, surnames:
3. Change of surname - when Harold ZAUSMER became Harold SEYMOUR - should I put Harold (ZAUSMER) SEYMOUR or Harold SEYMOUR/ZAUSMER or Harold SEYMOUR with ZAUSMER in an alternative name section?? Again, I would like my reports and charts to reflect both names.
4. Finally, the complete change of name - like mine - I was born Charles Alfred SHAW but legally changed it to Joyaa Bet'hlana ANTARES some 20 years ago - how do I record this in such a way that both names are shown appropriately.
5. I can't think of a 5 - yet!.
Thanks ever so much,
Joyaa, Queenland, Australia[cool]

ID:2520

Most of this has been covered before.

I would always recommend using the standard fields for the information rather than making it up as you go along.

Just customise the text schemes as you want them and you can re-use them all the time. The same with reports.

My standard 'simple' diagram scheme shows Prefered Names(s) under the name field where they are set so my own states

Rosemary Jane Mullins
Prefers : Jane

and my grandmother
Mary Margaret Bowditch
Prefers: Molly

I use the Nickname field where required and show them on diagrams.


Where names are changed simply add another Name field to the person and I would also recommend a name change attribute to detail the time and source of change information. Do a search for Deed Poll to find earlier discussions.

Thank you for that reply, Jane. I am studying your response and this is what I am thinking:
1. You use 'preferred name(s)' - so am I correct in thinking: 'Name Used' (detail tab)?
2. If 'Mary Margaret B' 'prefers' 'Polly', when might you the nickname field - i.e. it sounds to me that you're using 'Name Used' here too - am I missing something? (Sorry to sound anally retentive here, I just want to get it right!)
3. Some of my family have 'Hebrew' names in addition to their, er, 'other' ones - would you put this under 'Alt Name' (detail tab) or somewhere else?
4. Adding further name fields - ok, I'll try that. And I've now read the deep poll threads - cheers Jane. Joyaa, Queensland, Australia [cool]

I've found it doesn't work terribly well in FH, but I'm sticking to it in the hope it'll get better... I certainly think it's a mistake in the longer term to bury your own syntax for such things in the one Name box.

We put alternative surnames (more often in fact, alternative spellings or transliterations) in the Detail tab under Alt Name (with /.../ to make it a surname) and 'Known as' (I'm Neil Christopher Bowyer known as Chris) in Name Used, and have a text scheme so this appears on the diagram as 'Neil Christopher (Chris) BOWYER', or in the case of my G-something grandfather 'Richard BOYER (BOWYER).

I'm sure I put in a wish list request ages ago for alternative names to appear in narrative reports (we use narrative reports all the time for sharing information), but the 'known as' works quite nicely.

Generally it seems a good idea to put the name they were born with in the main Name box.

Thanks Chris - this seems to make sense. AND ... I'd be interested to hear from others who do this in a different way again - I'm brand new to FH and I'm interested to look at my options. Joyaa [cool] (wearing sunnies, even though it is night-time down-under!)

Here's another point (all about geneatiquette again, and again it's probably been covered before, but I cannae find it): Sources, Maiden names, alternative names etc: when you are quoting an individual as a source for a piece of information, whaich name do you use? The main name as appears in the tree (maybe womean's maiden name)? Their 'name used'? Another? ALSO (sorry!), I've often been putting 'self', 'partner', 'daughter' (where there is only one daughter) etc as the source for a particular piece of information .... Oh God! Am I in for a set of problems? Perhaps one should never even put 'Self' when a person has given info about themsleves - perhaps one should always use a person's NAME to avoid any doubts? Thank you for your feedback, FHUGgers, Joyaa[confused]

We have sources named something like 'Correspondence with...' using the name they used in that, and add notes or whatever to the source if you want to say more. And then make a point of attaching that source to the person in question (if they're on your tree) as well as to anything else they've told you about

Chris, thank you for what I believe are really sensible suggestions! I am having trouble getting the 'name used' field to appear in my diagrams (being new to this program). Diagram Options - yep; Text Schemes - yep; but then I notice that when I try to edit the NAME field, I am shown: '%INDI.NAME:FULL% (%_INSTANCE_%'. Or, with another scheme, just: '%INDI.NAME%'. I'm trawling my way through the manual (page 91 and counting) and using the program's Help facility on looking up data references, text templates etc but I don't seem to be finding a LIST of fields/data references I might want to use - in particular the 'Name Used' field. I am presuming that you programmed the text scheme yourself, to achieve 'Neil Christopher (Neil) BOWYER', with the 'Name Used' in parentheses, be it a first name or an alternatively spelt surname? Where can I find a list of such fields? What programming did you use that enabled the text scheme to know if the preferred name is a first name or surname (or did you just fiddle with the result in ... er... ? the property dialogue 'sentence' box? Thanks, Joyaa.

That's the hard way, just click on the insert item to the right of the import box, drill down to the Name field and select the one you want from the list provided.

Jane, Chris: thank you both for your responses, which I have now had time to tuck into/try out etc.  Two questions arise:
a) Chris, on sources: what do you mean by 'ATTACHING that source to the person in question'?  I can create a source with that person's name - is that what you mean, or is there a way of directly LINKING a source to a name in the Records window that I haven't found?  
b) Jane, please can you clarify what you meant by 'insert item to the right of the import box'? I cannot find anything called an 'import box' in Family Historian or the help manual.
I'm grateful to you both for your help.

Jane means the input box or in less computer gibberish the place where you type in the expression. The insert item is the button to the right labelled '' from the 'Sources For:' drop down list in the source pane and then create the citation.

HTH

Joyaa Antares said:
a) Chris, on sources: what do you mean by 'ATTACHING that source to the person in question'? I can create a source with that person's name - is that what you mean, or is there a way of directly LINKING a source to a name in the Records window that I haven't found?

Let's say I have interviewed you and want to associate the interview with your entry in my database.

Here's what I would do:

Starting in the Records view window --

1) Right click on your name -- that brings up a menu
2) choose 'Add source' to bring up sub-menu
the three choices on that menu are:

Add Link to New Source Record
Add Link to Existing Source Record
Add Source Note to this Record

If I have already created a source 'interview with Joyaa Antares, 19 Oct 2007' I can then link to the source which already exists (Add Link to Existing Source Record). Or I could create the source on the spot (Add Link to New Source Record). Or can add a note to your name which says 'see sources [S1] [S2] for interviews with this person' (Add Source Note to this Record).

If you have a very large database and only a handful of living people that have corresponded with you, you might find it easier to keep track of the people who have written / spoken to you by creating a named list of 'Correspondents' and adding their names to that list. Click on the name of that list and you'll see List Properties -- choose that and you'll be able to write a note about what the purpose of the list is.

To answer your earlier question, I would use names as much as possible rather than say 'self' or 'daughter' -- although I would include those IDs also in order to keep things clear -- such as 'interview with [name] (Joyaa Antares's daughter)'.

I have a source in my databases called 'Jan's speculations' to mark the data I have only guessed at. If you are 'interviewing' yourself, you could make a source 'recollections of Joyaa Antares' with the date. It sounds pompous to refer to oneself in the third person, but if you ever have to turn a copy of your work over to another person, it will make things much more clear about where the information came from.

Hope this helps.

Jan

Oops! I accidentally quoted myself rather than editing the previous message -- and the 'delete' button doesn't seem to be getting rid of this message. Sorry about the clutter.

So much to say but will try to be concise ... Firstly, I'd like to express a HUGE thank you to the Jane's, Chris's, Jon's and Jan's of this world who are giving freely of their time to help out the Joyaa's and other non-afficionados (spelling?) trying to get to grips with FH. It's not that I understand what you are trying to tell me half the time but, egad, I'm working very hard at it! Secondly, and in response to Jan's post, which I did largely understand: Aw Shit! (No offense to any scatophobes intended) I had no idea that you could LINK to sources like that, and it now looks as though I may have a lot of work ahead of me sorting this out, unless a White Knight or Knightess can once again come to my rescue? My file was originally imported over from FTM (Family Tree Maker), so none of the sources came across linked at that time. Since then I have added sources by the single means that I was aware of - Individual Record Dialogue Box, Show Sources, Add Citation. Now I have some 670 individuals (growing of course), a long list of unlinked sources, and some 1400 source citations. I'm the archetypal Virgo - multiple citations per individual, depending where I got each item of info from. Some of my sources SHOULD be unlinked (eg genealogical websites), but I want to link up the others. Is there a short cut to linking my unlinked sources to individual records? The names currently differ - Smith, John for the Individual, John Smith for the Source - again my error. I also realise that my strategy to get to know FH, of (laboriously) reading through the entire FH manual from start to finish, is very seriously flawed - I am currently at chapter 10 of 17 (Multimedia - very exciting actually!) but, Hey ! Sources don't come until chapter 11 !! Can someone suggest what might be a better strategy to learn the program (or do we all have to go through this Path of Initiation)? I think that I should ask Simon Orde to send a White Knight to gloriously sunny Queensland for an all-expenses FH-paid trip to teach me the system. Any takers?? One day I shall happily join the ranks of the White Knights but today I'm not quite there! [cry]

I find the best strategy to learn a program is to fiddle with it till you get to understand how it works and get your mental model of the program sorted out. Do some trials using it as you expect to carry out your genealogical work and see how it fits with the program's model and adjust accordingly in a fine tuning process.

Reading manuals from cover to cover does not really work. Skim read it to get an idea of the features of the program. You then just need remember that a feature exists so if you have problems you can remember that the help has something about it and read it in depth when you need to know rather than days/weeks/months beforehand when you liable to forget.

There is no real shortcut to link the sources to the individuals. Don't worry too much about sources not having the same name as the individual so long as they aren't ambiguous.

HTH

I have a couple of ideas for you to think about. Of course you must do what works best for you, so weight these ideas against your own working style.

My first idea is basically the same as what Jon has just said in the previous message when he talks about a 'mental model' of the program.

When learning a new program, I find it helpful to open the program and simply look at all the items on the menus.

I don't worry about what any of the commands mean or why some items are greyed out. I simply pull down the menus and look at what is on the File menu, what is on the Edit Menu, and so on. This helps me build my memory of where things are in the menu system, and puts in a foundation for learning the names for the commands and what the program can do.

When I read the manual, my brain has already seen the commands before, so they seem more familiar. I am not trying to absorb the name 'OLE object' and the concept of an 'OLE object' all at the same time. Once I get to the section on working with Multimedia and my brain has already seen the words 'OLE object' before so it is ready to learn about what an OLE object is.

Later on as I understand more about the program or need to use a feature, I will have a sense that 'I know this program can do this task because I saw it on the menus somewhere'.

This may seem very silly, but I know from my teaching experience that it is better to learn a foreign language by exposing your brain to it in very small exposures over multiple times in a day, rather than sitting down and trying to cram it all in during one sitting. That is, if you have vocabulary to learn, it is far better to have flash cards and take them with you and look at them five times during the day for five minutes each than to sit down at your desk once and go through them for 25 minutes.

So what I would suggest is to make a FH file which has one person in it - you -- and then take a moment each day to open it, look at the menu items, click through the tabs, and so on, just to 'warm up' and remind yourself where things are in the program and what things look like when you have that display on the screen. Don't try to make sense of it or worry that you don't know what things do yet -- just expose yourself to how things look so they will become more familiar, and when you do look at the manual, your brain will say 'oh, yes, I've seen this before!'

More on the next rock.

Jan

Now, about sources.

One of the reasons I chose Family Historian over all the other programs I tried (and I tried a lot of them) is that it allows me to work in the method I was trained when I did linguistics.

In the field we collected information. Then we took the raw notes and re-transcribed them into permanent notebooks, adding commentary where needed. Then we broke down the information into its component parts for analysis.

Most genealogy programs encourage you to create people in your database and then enter information about them and then attach the source citations to the information you put in. What often happens is that many of us go out gathering information tra la la and we toss it into the program and we never get around to putting in the notes about where it came from.

I propose that it is much better to do things the other way around.

As Jon says, it is helpful to play around with the program first to see how it works. So if you are at all concerned about messing up your data, create a new file to work with.

Take one item from the materials you have collected. Let's say you have an obituary.

Go to 'sources' and create a source for this obituary. If you know where the obituary came from, that's great, but if you don't, don't worry -- I have lots of sources where the publication data is 'newspaper clipping (unidentified)' because I haven't been able to figure out yet where the obit was published.

(For the 'Repository' I created a 'Family Papers' entry and noted that my sister-in-law has physical possession of the actual objects -- I am working off digital copies or photocopies.)

(Now that we've put in the publication data for this obituary and know where we can find it again, if we also have a digital copy of it, we can create a Multimedia object record and link the digital copy to this source record.)

All done?

Now that you have your source, here's what you do. Go to the Tools menu and choose 'Set Automatic Source Citation'.

I click both the check boxes to add the source citation to all individual, family, and note records, and to add source citation to new fields (where possible).

I do not use the assessment quality box when I use automatic source citation for obituaries. More on that later.

But remember, we are just playing around at the moment, so you can try it another way with the next obituary and see what difference it makes and which way you like better.

I went to Ancestry just now and pulled out a random obituary to look at while I am writing this message.

This is a new person so I have to insert a new individual. But now that I have my source and I have created her basic record, look what happens. I can right-click on her name and on the menu that pops up, I see 'Paste Auto-citation'. So if I had previously entered her information, I could now choose what bits are in her obituary and tell Family Historian that these data items are found in this obit.

What does this obit tell me?

Her married name
her age at death
I can calculate her date of death by pulling up a calendar and working backwards from publication date to 'Tuesday' when she died.
the city she resided in
what hospital she died in
her birth date
her birth place
her parents' names
her husband's name
her marriage date
her hobbies
she has four daughters (listed by name and cities where they live)
she has 15 grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. Since we don't know how to distribute this information yet, it can be put into a note -- it might be easier to find this later if we use the 'child count' to put in that she has four daughters, and then put the 15 grandchildren in the note field. We could also make a named list 'Identify grandchildren' and add her name to that list.

the obit gives the names of relatives who died before her: her parents, one sister, one brother.

the obit ends with the listings of where to send gifts in her memory, where the graveside services will be, the location of the viewing and the memorial services.

Once you have entered all that, or revisited it and pasted in the auto source citation, cancel Automatic Source Citation.

Voila! you now know where all that information came from.

This seems to be a much better way of going about it than doing 'fill in the blanks' data-entry on people and then -- way after the fact -- saying 'oh, yeah, where did I learn the marriage date for this couple?' and then digging through all your sources like crazy looking for it.

Now, about the source quality assessment menu --

Not all sources are going to be the same quality throughout. For an obit, you can assume that the funeral home information is accurate, because if they are the ones submitting the obit to the paper, it is in their best business interests to get all their own information right. But the other information has probably been gathered from family members, so transcription errors or other mistakes could have crept in. My father-in-law's obit, for instance, mis-spells the name of his hometown pretty badly. And sometimes stuff is just wrong. For instance, if I had been the one to write my dad's obit I would have gotten the city he came from wrong because I remembered the nearest big city -- I didn't know the place he was actually born (which I learned by talking to my older brother). So if you use the quality assessment it is best to mark individual items separately, unless you prefer to mark the whole obit as questionable until proven.

Hope this helps!

Jan

To add to Jan's excellent comments regarding sources you may find the Knowlege Base article on Sources useful

Regards

Nick

Joyaa Antares said:
My file was originally imported over from FTM (Family Tree Maker), so none of the sources came across linked at that time. ... Now I have some 670 individuals (growing of course), a long list of unlinked sources, and some 1400 source citations.

I did not have quite the same situation, since I had maybe 200 individuals in a couple of files in Ancestral Quest. But I do understand the task you are facing, because I have been gathering source material for months while I was deciding what program I wanted to use, so my stuff is in a big mess just as yours is.

I chose to start with an entirely blank file and to re-enter the data in Family Historian, so I could learn how to do data-entry in Family Historian properly. Now that I have learned more about the program, I am tempted to go back and start again, re-analyzing my data as I go, and sorting my paper records at the same time.

But if you want to work with your files which have been brought over from FTM, here's what I would suggest.

You say your sources did come across -- so go to the window that displays your sources, and every day, choose a couple of sources, use the Automatic Source Citation function as I outlined above, and paste in the auto-citations to the bits of your people and their data where they apply.

Let's say you have 365 sources, if you do only one a day, in a year they will all be done.

Do not worry about how much you have to do. That way lies madness. Set some reasonable, attainable goal that you can meet in a few minutes a day, then ration the work and plan to do only a small amount each day.

It helps to look at your data in similar groups. If you are working in different areas, do all the sources from one town first, then the other town. Or if you have birth registrations, do the birth information first, then the death registrations. And so on. This makes it easier to keep track of what you have done or not done.

One thing that might help is GenSmarts.

http://www.gensmarts.com/

It can read your Family Historian file and suggest things for you to research. I don't know how well they cover Australia yet but they do have some limited information for Australia. A trial version is available for download, so you can see if it would be useful to you before you buy.

Their website says:

What countries does GenSmarts support?

GenSmarts comes with a known records inventory that supports research for the USA, Canada, and the UK. There is also a little content for Australia. You can add your own known records inventory definitions for any country.

So when I run GenSmarts on my FH file, I get lists like this:

Massachusetts Cemetary/Burial Records for (name) [ID]
Massachusetts YYYY Census for (name) [ID]
[Town] Massachusetts City Directory for (name) [ID]
[County] Massachusetts County Birth Records for (name) [ID]
Massachusetts World War I Draft Registrations for (name) [ID]
[County] Massachusetts County Death Records for (name) [ID]
[County] Massachusetts County Probate Records for (name) [ID]
[County] Massachusetts County Land Transactions for (name) [ID]
USA Social Security Death Index for (name) [ID]
USA World War II Older Men Registrations for (name) [ID]

As you go through and look for things, you can mark them as FOUND or Not Found, Plan to Search or Revisit Later.

This can be used to keep track of which items you have linked up by marking things as FOUND after you have entered the citations in your the database.

Or you could do it the old-fashioned way by finding or creating a form (many books and magazines have sample forms you can copy or download) that is a records checklist and marking or listing the items you have re-linked.

Try to look at this as an opportunity to organize your data and a treasure hunt to find things that you might have overlooked, and not a burden that has to be overcome, and you'll do much better.

Jan

Nick Walker said:
To add to Jan's excellent comments regarding sources you may find the Knowlege Base article on Sources useful

Regards

Nick

Thanks, Nick!

While I am experienced at handling data, I am still a newbie to genealogy and to Family Historian -- I should be reading the articles in the Knowledge Base too, to keep myself on track. [oops]

P.S. to Joyaa: if you have Census returns from the USA or the UK, then Nick Walker's add-on program Gedcom Census is a MUST!

[wink]

Jan

P.S.  While proofreading my earlier messages, I was reminded that in the USA we say 'check boxes' and check marks, to 'check things off on the list', and so on.

I believe the usage in the UK is to say 'tick' and 'tick boxes' for this process.

However, to 'tick off' someone in the US is to make them angry. Sometimes when writing to people in other countries I may adopt their usage (I have no problem writing a date as 22 Nov 2007) but it feels odd for me to write 'tick off'.  [wink]

Jan

Thank you, Shining Knights! I'll take on board all of this advice. As many will know, it's difficult fitting in a part-time (massive!) passion around the rest of one's life. Being so limited for time I devised this 'wonderful' strategy for methodically learning a new programme (instead of doing what I did with FTM, which is as you have recommended here) and then I didn't build in the time to sit down and review how (in)effective my strategy was! Perhaps the thought of scrapping my system has been too dreadful to contemplate but now, with such clear peer advice, I know I would be silly to do anything else! Thanks again for all of your time and help.