Family Historian User Group

Posted originally by tljdaniels60
I would like your opinions on the most appropriate way to enter Census information into the Family Historian database, i.e. the most appropriate method that most users conform to.

Regards...

Jeff

ID:356

I create a source record for each household and make sure that the name of the source includes the year of the census, the location and the PRO reference number. Within the source text I include the data from the census. For each person in the household who is also in my family tree I create a census event with the date, age, location, address filled in and linked back to the source. I also where appropriate create an occupation attribute and link this to the source too. I moved to Family Historian from an older version of FTM because I wanted to organise my census sources in this manner. I soon found that this took rather too long and I wrote a program to allow me to automate much of the repetitive parts of this process and this has allowed me to enter hundreds of census records in a relatively short time. When I mentioned that I had developed this program various members of the FHUG asked to try it out and it has been available for a couple of months now on this website.

Some users pointed out that they dealt with their census sources differently by having just having a source for each census year and linking to that and so I then updated my program to allow for that method too.

I have no idea which of these methods is the most popular but both methods are perfectly valid and both are used by a large number of people.

Hello All,
I'm very new to FH and chose this partly because of the Reports available.  I also particularly liked the Gedcom Census facility as the entries for each census created the sort of timeline I was looking for in the Individual Summary Report.
The solution to my question may well have been solved by somebody else so I hope you can help.  
There seem to be two missing items when using the Gedcom Census, firstly is the place of birth, as this is sometimes noted a little differently in other places, secondly there may be a person I want to note as being in the household but who is not connected to the family.  I thought I could get around these problems by using the Text from Source and print in all the details.  This would have solved everything for me, except that this text doesn't print on the Report as the census entry does.  

Is anybody able to provide me with an idiots guide how to show this please?
Mary

Hi Mary, glad you like Gedcom Census [smile]

The details of the census record with all the columns such as place of birth, disability, etc. should be entered into the source text. The report you refer to is displaying the census event and also the occupation attributes for the person that Gedcom Census has automatically created. The problem with the 'place of birth' is that this can only be recorded as an event using a birth event. I didn't include this as I felt it would cause far too much confusion to have several birth events for one person (even though that is probably the correct way to do it). I might add the facility in the future to add the place of birth and calculated place of birth if one isn't already recorded for the individual.

What is required is a report that gives the option to show the details of the individuals and display the sources including the text of the source rather than just the title. I don't believe this is possible in the current version of Family Historian although 'More and better formatting options for source info in reports' is in the wish list on this website.

Hi Nick
I previously used Family Tree GSP, a £5 package off a local shop's shelf and got over its limitations by typing up Word Documents transcribing a whole census household.  This sort of entry into a FH field would also seem to fit my bill as I could add comments underneath as I wished.

So since yesterday I have played about a little bit with making a Custom Report, for a database dummy I am proud that I have got a little way along.  

I have actually managed to make the field show on a customised Individual Summary Report, but it lists itself in the top section instead of in the Individual Events and Attributes section, ideally under each census entry, but that remains to be seen.  I'm working on solving that point.  [confused]The other point is that it has only allowed 1 line for the entry instead of a memo kind of field, so that's another thing to work on.  

If anybody has any ideas I'd be glad to hear them, meanwhile I don't give up easily [smile]

As I said, I believe that putting the entry into the source text is the best way forward unless you want to have multiple birth events for one person. I think it is more important to have the data entered correctly even if a report to produce the information isn't possible in the current version of FH.

Its not the actual birth events that I'm bothered about, its the additional people who I want to show are in the household but not in my tree.

The text is there in the source, it shows as 'Actual Text' in the record, I just need to get it to show in the report as yours does. [nonsense] yep I guess I'm talking nonsense hahaha

No I understand that - but I don't think it is possible to format the report in the way you require in the current version of FH.

I guess you are right [cry] Thanks anyway for your Gedcom Census, that is good.

Mary,
To make the 'text from source' print out in an individual or a
family group report you must go into 'options' when you have your report showing. Then click on the 'sources' tab and then tick the box marked 'text from source'. This should do what you want if I have understood you correctly.

Peter E

Thank you Peter,
That's not quite.
I uploaded all of my census information, linked to people using the Gedcom Census. I put a whole load of info into the Source Text box. Now I have all of my censuses listed under Sources and the sub headings in them are Title or Actual Text. This second field holds all the info I typed in.

The only place this field will upload to a Report is in the Main Section - not ideal as it should be with each census entry lower down with the Events, but even so, only one line is allowed for this text to show on a Report.

Even if I add a Note to the Source, meaning that I would have to do each of these individually all over again, and I've verified that the 'text from source' is checked, it still doesn't show a thing.

Its getting a bit disappointing as showing the census information was one of the reasons why I wanted an improved software, but despite everybody's helpful suggestions, it doesn't seem to give me what I want.

If I print an individual report for each member of a household, I want to see the census information as a whole, not just the bits relating to that person.
[frown]
Thanks for your suggestions.

Mary,
To make the 'text from source' print out in an individual or a
family group report you must go into 'options' when you have your report showing. Then click on the 'sources' tab and then tick the box marked 'text from source'.
Peter E

This is for the 'text from source' within the source citation rather than the source itself. The source titles are listed at the end of the report but there aren't currently any options available to include the whole source information as well, unless I am missing something. It is top of my wish-list for this to be made possible in a future version, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to implement. I currently find all the sources referred to and do a separate source report ('Record Details - Sources') to use in conjunction with the individual report.

Brilliant Nick,
That works a treat for my purposes. Thanks for your help.
[smile]