Inclusion of large text files of family stories.

TimM · Post by **TimM** » 24 Jan 2004 17:59

Can anyone suggest how to handle a 55 page dossier about and written by various family members. It's not just factual, ie birth, marriage, death, dates & places, but the relationships and who knew who, who did what etc.
I don't want to dismember the document but would somehow like to link the appropriate people/families to the appropriate sections.
Any ideas?

ID:269

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 24 Jan 2004 18:23

Thats a hard one for your first question [grin], what is the document currently in is it a text document or a word (rich text) document. To start with I might be tempted if its in word to attach it as a multimedia document and then link it to all the people involved. Let me know what you currently store it in and I will see what I can think of.

Unless anyone else already has the answer.

TimM · Post by **TimM** » 24 Jan 2004 19:05

At moment, it's 55 hard-copy pages of typing. I was planning to scan it in and OCR it to Word to tidy it up.

TimM · Post by **TimM** » 26 Jan 2004 18:27

I've been thinking about this. Supposing the document were to be treated as a source, so, with a source record, individuals could have a source citation, identifying the relevant chapter/section within the document.
The document also contains a lot of general stuff, like how one of the surnames was introduced by Dutch immigrants in the 14th century and how it can be traced (even to this day) to areas of the country and latterly to America.
So the questions now are:
1. Can I create a file link between the source record and the external document?
2. Due to the general nature of the document, creating citations within the individual's birth; marrage, death, occupation, residence etc fields seems inapropriate. I was thinking of using a 'Note' attribute (or possibly creating a custom attribute) and adding the source citation there.
3, If a source document contains references in separate parts of it which you want ot reference, do you just list them within the one citation. ie 'Pages Q; R & Y' or do you create separate citations?
4. Finally, does this sound like a sensible solution?

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 26 Jan 2004 19:46

That sounds fine. I would be very tempted to produce the document as an HTML one. You can then use anchors to build an index to the citation points.

You can link any file to a source using the multimedia options of FH. I have done so with HTML pages I have written about some of my ancestors.

TimM · Post by **TimM** » 26 Jan 2004 22:10

Thanks for the suggestion of using HTML. However, I'm not familiar with it nor the terms you have used of 'Anchors to build an index'.
Are these like bookmarks?
What's the advantage of HTML over Word?
Can the citations link directly to the bookmarks?
Please clarify.

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 26 Jan 2004 23:04

My own preference is for HTML, simply because it is very portable and because of its 'text' format likely to be more future proof.

Anchors are hyperlinks which allow you to move around a page, or on to a different document. They are how the Web works.

Although the links can not be made 'live' at the moment, the anchors should make it easy to find the relevent bit in the main source information.

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