Family Historian User Group

I can't seem to see a way to do this and was wondering if this feature was missing.

Can I set a source to a multimedia object?

ID:2911

Yes! Is the good news.

An example where the multimedia might be a scan of a birth certificate: click on 'Insert' on the menu, and then 'Source'. Enter a title for the source, for example 'Birth Certificate - Fred Blogs'. Fill in some of the other fields if you're feeling confident.

Now, click on the Tab that says 'Objects', and cick the little camera icon on that tab. Now click on 'Insert' on the menu again, and this time 'Picture'. Choose your file and click OK.

Hey presto, you have linked a source to a multimedia object.

E&OE!

Adrian,

I was aware of doing that and have an image associated with most of the sources (only have 50 but over 4,000 citations) that I have so far.

However, if you go to that image, then there is no mention within the record for that object of what it's source is, where it came from.

Reason this has come up as I have recently found a book with images of family ancestors. I put the image in for the various people, but that problem I see, is when you are looking at the person's record and the image, there is no easy way to see where the image came from.

If I pass the file(s) off to someone else or I drop off the face of the earth, how does someone work out where those photos actually come from?

Way I see it, why aren't the objects treated in the same way that individuals, families, and notes are and be able to have a source associated with them?

Or am I just looking at this totally the wrong way?

There is a way, but it is a bit of a tortuous method. It's possible only because the Gedcom standard allows notes to have sources to have notes to have sources etc without any limit.

The method is to select the multimedia record either in the record window, or the All tab of the property window. Right click on the record and select 'Add Note>' from the pop-up menu, then 'Add Link/Note to this Record'. Now right click on this new Link/Note and select 'Add Source'. You can select an existing source, or create on one the fly. A source note (an option at this point) is not a full reference to a source and cannot be cited in other records, so it's not recommended to use it.

You can use the Sources for Given Record query to see the source for the picture.

HTH

Thanks Jon, that certainly does it.

Is there a particular reason why objects don't have a source? Is it something in the .ged specs that they don't?

Support for sources against multimedia records is included in Gedcom 5.5.1. FH uses 5.5 and strictly adheres to it which is why FH doesn't support sources for objects even though its logical for all records to have sources.

Don't forget Gedcom was designed by the LDS primarily to allow the members to send basic family data to their temples for their 'sealing' process. Genealogical features came later after pressure from researchers, but even then it's still not perfect. Now that the LDS have stopped supporting Gedcom (from an article by Dick Eastman) there will not be any changes to the standard so who knows what will happen when more and more users demand new features from their program's in response to a changing society, e.g. civil partnerships, donor eggs/sperm. The whole point about gedcom is to allow transfer of data rather than be used as a storage method. Communicating facts such as partnerships etc can still be done via notes in Gedcom files, leaving it up to the user and their program to handle it their own particular way.