Family Historian User Group

Since moving from TMG I am in the middle of some empirical testing to see how different programs deal with Attributes vs Events, especially how they are treated re import/export GEDCOM files. However part of this testing is converting in FH Attributes to Events and vice versa.

Hence the excellent plugin Change Any Fact Tag.

Event to Attribute no problem. The note stays as the same note, but with a blank "Attribute Value". This is good because as far as I can see the "Attribute Value" can only be a single line and possibly limited to the maximum GEDCOM file length (which I think is 256, but historically from the old days of DOS often defaults to a Fixed Block length of only 80. I found this out when transferring GEDCOM files to the old Family Tree Maker from TMG), so no loss of data, but the "Attribute Value" may need to be entered or moved from the note.

Attribute to Event. This works fine, the note becomes the note, but it puts the "Attribute Value" in a SOURce note. Again no loss of data, but viewing the SOURce note is not obvious link in the property box or a report.

So suggestion for Attribute to Event: An option to add the "Attribute Value" to the top of the event note instead of in a SOURce note.

As an aside, TMG seems to treat Attributes and Events in a similar fashion without an "Attribute Value", the difference seems to come into play when exporting to GEDCOM when in order to ensure multi line notes are exported, you have the choice to treat the "tag/fact" as an event. So the only time I can think of when an Attribute is beneficial over an Event is in reports where notes can be excluded but the "Attribute Value" is still shown, but this is a limitation of the report options i.e. not being able to select notes for individual events or an individual line in a note.

Jim stated:

Attribute to Event. This works fine, the note becomes the note, but it puts the "Attribute Value" in a SOURce note. Again no loss of data, but viewing the SOURce note is not obvious link in the property box or a report.

In the Property Box on the Facts tab you must select an Attribute to see its Value. Similarly, if you select the Event derived from the Attribute then you see its Source Note in the yellow Sources pane. In Reports the Event cross-references to the Source Note listed under Sources.

Jim suggested:

So suggestion for Attribute to Event: An option to add the "Attribute Value" to the top of the event note instead of in a SOURce note.

That is a valid suggestion, but under what circumstances is it likely that an Attribute with a Value would be changed into an Event?

Jim asserted:

So the only time I can think of when an Attribute is beneficial over an Event is in reports where notes can be excluded but the "Attribute Value" is still shown.

The other advantage is in Narrative Reports where the Sentence Template can be composed around both the {value} and {note} tags.

cheers Mike, all comments accepted. It will be interesting to see how other programs deal with Attribute vs Events. Of course a lot of my "data design" hangs around how things import/export, not necessarily how they best fit in my main program.

How other programs deal with Events vs Attributes is discussed in GEDCOM Between Various Programs (11326)...

After further research and chiefly because of the limitations of the data selection of Reports in FH (Outline in particular, an underdeveloped resource in most genealogical programs for this efficient report format) I can now see a greater advantage to using Attributes over Events, as I said:

So the only time I can think of when an Attribute is beneficial over an Event is in reports where notes can be excluded but the "Attribute Value" is still shown.

And Mike said:

Narrative Reports where the Sentence Template can be composed around both the {value} and {note} tags.

The trick is to work out which will be useful as Attributes in the above scenarios.

This discussion continues in the Importing and Exporting Forum under Standard v Custom GEDCOM (11361) as it has moved away from the Change Any Fact Tag plugin.