'Mailing list' / Contact details

karenndean · Post by **karenndean** » 06 May 2009 17:38

An address tab / field seperate to the events tab.
Where you can record current postal address / email / telephone etc etc.
My basic old software had this function, and am a little surprised its not included on such a sofisticated program as FH

ID:3670

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 06 May 2009 17:42

You can keep it in the Residence event or set up custom attributes, but personally I use Submitter records and attach them to people on the All Tab.

This has the advantage when I send the file to someone else I can use the split tree tool to remove all the submitters and know I am not sharing e-mail and telephone numbers etc.

It also means I have an address book via the Submitter tab via the Records window, you do need to tell Preferences to always show the Submitter tab.

karenndean · Post by **karenndean** » 06 May 2009 18:06

Thanks Jane,
I have just set one up for my parents to see how it works.
On the records view it has now added a submitter tab, and shows the submitter record that I just created, and tells me that it is linked to 2 people (used both their 'all' tabs to link them to it, but I cant see anywhere that it gives you the option to see who its linked to.

Post by **ColeValleyGirl** » 07 May 2009 11:52

Have you tried View - Record Links? I don't have any submitter records, so can't test it myself.

karenndean · Post by **karenndean** » 07 May 2009 14:06

Just tried it, and if you select to just show the submitter records it says there are arent any.

Shame, as an 'address book' feature is a really good idea. I obviously have an address book, but when you are contacting distant relatives from a list of names it takes a while to figure out who people are and what side of the family they are on. If it was on their record, you could see straight away.

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 07 May 2009 17:27

To view the link you need to select the submitter record in question in the record window, then select View->Record Links... In the record type selection ensure it is set to all or individual. If you set the record type to submitter it won't show any records since there won't be any submitters linked to submitters. I hope that explains it.

KarenMG · Post by **KarenMG** » 13 May 2009 13:02

Thanks for this.
Still doesnt really satisfy my needs though.
Would prefer an actual address tab on the person.
Very long winded as it stands using submitters.

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 13 May 2009 19:23

I have created a new Tab on the Property Box and used:

INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.ADR1
INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.ADR2
INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.CITY
INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.STAE
INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.POST
INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.CTRY

and you could add any other fields that you like! You do have to fill in the fields individually unless there is some way of importing and Outlook Address Book or a CSV file

As Jane points out it would be more difficult to delete this information if sharing the Gedcom file but perhaps someone could suggest how it could be done?

Gerry

KarenMG · Post by **KarenMG** » 13 May 2009 22:19

I didnt realise that you could add tabs.... how do i do this?
Thanks

KarenMG · Post by **KarenMG** » 13 May 2009 22:31

Ok, figured that out! Brilliant! I wasnt aware you could do this.

Does anyone know the format for things like - landline, mobile, email etc.

KarenMG · Post by **KarenMG** » 13 May 2009 22:48

Sorry, another question...
Am playing around and learning alot about this. Its brilliant.

I am trying to create a family address tab to avoid duplication. I would like to include 2 fields for mobile and 2 for email -just in case each spouse has one, however, when I select the attributes for the husband and phone number from the list for the code it tells me that
'This data contains one or more links to other fields. These are not permitted in this context'

Would this have anything to do with the fact that I have already created an individual tab whilst practising?

Thank you.

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 14 May 2009 06:28

Karen,

That one is too technical for me! If it will help, the Property Box I used is at the level of one individual but you could try creating the extra address tab at the Family level. Go to the Families Tab in Family Records and see if it works there.

Gerry

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 14 May 2009 06:56

Karen, I suspect it's not possible as you are moving to another record (The individual record for the husband) to try and put the information in, which the Property Box can't do in an update context.

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 14 May 2009 20:07

I should point out that there is a 'gotcha' with creating an Address tab as I described earlier. If you use INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.ADR1 it will show the first Residence Fact (Attribute) which may not be the same as the current address. In order to get round this you need to create a dummy Residence Fact with the date phrase 'Current' or something similar that is not recognised as an actual date. This should ensure that if you 're-order out-of-sequence data' it will be the first Residence Fact displayed (at least that is what happens on my project). It would therefore be a good idea for the first item on the tab to be the date field: INDI.RESI[1].DATE and to check that the dummy date is displayed. The Place field can be left blank unless you want to add this as a quick reminder of the current address.

If the individual already has a Residence Fact (the first or earliest one by date) that is not the same as the current address you can use the All tab to copy and paste it to the same person then edit the first entry to have a date phrase as described above. It would probably be a good idea at that stage to do a 'Sort Family & Events in Date Order' from the Tabs menu button to ensure that everything is working as planned.

One bonus of using this way of keeping an address list is that when the individual moves you can keep the old address as a record of where they lived in the past: give it a date - perhaps the year they moved to that address or a date range if you know it. That Fact will then be sorted correctly. Then create a new dummy address as described above, making sure that it has a dummy date.

Gerry

KarenMG · Post by **KarenMG** » 15 May 2009 08:17

Morning,
Thank you.
Something to think about certainly.
Up til now I have been using the 'Address' rather than 'Residence'
For the people that I have manually added an address to the newly created address tab, it creates a blank Residence event.
The format of the Residence event is the same as any other, and doesnt really match the 'codes' that I have created my fields by on address tab (the ones that are listed on here, plus phone and email) - how does it recognise the different parts of a an address? As I quite like the idea of keeping a record of their addresses, but only want the address tab to be used for for living family members.
How would I enter information into the Residence event so that correctly appears on my address tab?

(Am going to add the date field now to the top, I like that idea very much)

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 15 May 2009 10:15

Karen,

I hope my explanation didn't cause any confusion. I don't think there is an Address attribute as such - it is part of the Residence Attribute, as in the Reference: INDI.RESI[1].ADDR.ADR1

So when you create the new Tab (which you can call anything you like: Address; Residence; Contacts etc) the fields you insert are part of the Residence Attribute although the Label you use can also be anything you like - Street, Address, Road or whatever.

The information you type in - house number, street, town, postcode etc are just kept as text in the Gedcom file and I don't think FH4 will understand them as different parts of the address. What you could do, however, it to create a Query that lists everyone with a Residence Attribute where the Date ('INDI.RESI[1].DATE') is whatever you decide as the Dummy date - I use 'Current':

and

When you run the Query you can then save the result as a CSV file ready to load into a spreadsheet or word processor and use it to create a mailmerge.

Does that help?

Gerry

Post by **NickWalker** » 15 May 2009 11:20

Just to add a bit to Gerry's description. All the events and attributes (Facts) in GEDCOM have 'Place' and 'Address' elements as you know. Jane, myself and others on this site always tend to advocate putting the Town/Village, County, Country into the 'Place' field and the rest of the address in the address field, e.g. '1 The Hight Street'. This address information can be typed into the Address line in the property dialog in Family Historian and gets stored using an Address GEDCOM tag:
e.g.:

3 ADDR 1 The Hight Street

If you needed to have the address over more than 1 line you could potentially use a CONT line, e.g.:

3 ADDR The Cottages
4 CONT The High Street.

However, the GEDCOM standard also provides some other fields that can be used as an alternative to using the ADDR/CONT:

3 ADDR
4 ADR1
4 ADR2
4 CITY
4 STAE
4 POST
4 CTRY

The GEDCOM standard says: The address structure should be formed as it would appear on a mailing label using the ADDR and ADDR.CONT lines. These lines are required if an ADDRess is present. Optionally, additional structure is provided for systems that have structured their addresses for indexing and sorting.

So if you wanted to make sure that these 'special' residence events don't interfere with normal residence events that have the usual place/address data then a neater solution might be to create a new custom fact and using the address structure in that. The danger with using residence is that it will be more difficult to strip out the addresses of living people from a GEDCOM if you're passing it to someone else. If you remove all the residence events it will lose all your 19th century residence data too. However, if you use a custom fact you could just strip out all occurrences of that fact.

Hope this makes some kind of sense.

Nick

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 15 May 2009 12:10

Nick,

Thanks for the clarification - I'm at the limit of my understanding of the Gedcom standard! Your point about using a custom fact is well made.

Gerry

KarenMG · Post by **KarenMG** » 15 May 2009 12:55

Thanks very much for this, will have to sit with a cup of coffee and play around with this in a bit.
Thank you.

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