emails as sources

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 11 Nov 2009 16:15

This must have been asked before, but I really can't find it anywhere if it has !

If you receive an email with some genealogical information -perhaps amongst some other general chatter- how would you source the information ?

Obviously you would create a new source record called 'Email from Joe Bloggs' etc, but would you then copy the body of the email into the 'Text from Source' box, or would you save the email as a text file and link to it as a media file attached to the source ?

The first way is more compact, but it means that the whole of the email will go into your GEDCOM file. The second way keeps the text seperate, but is more cumbersome and less accessible.

Any guidance would be very welcome.

Cheers,
Geoff Browne.

ID:4129

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 11 Nov 2009 16:54

Personally I add the content of the email in to the Text From Source Field (using common sense to remove any irrelevant bits eg Dear Jane, how is your Mother.

I also put [ [ ] ] around any sensitive text which although I want to record I want to make sure won't make it to my website by accident.

If you wanted to keep the email in a separate file, remember there is no reason you can't attach it as a media item to the source.

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 11 Nov 2009 17:05

Hi Jane,

Thanks for that quick reply. Are you not concerned about swelling your GEDCOM file with lots of verbage though ? Perhaps it doesn't matter.

I would create a seperate text file and then link it to the source, but like I said, it's slower, more cumbersome and less accessible (requiring an external reader such as Notepad etc to view it).

Terrific hint about the square brackets by the way - I never knew it hides text from being published on the FH generated websites. Very useful.

I wonder how other FH users record their email sources ?

Cheers,
Geoff.

brian1950 · Post by **brian1950** » 11 Nov 2009 18:34

I pretty much do what Jane does. Also, I print off a hard copy as a paper backup, which goes into my file. I can then review the document at leisure, away from the computer screen.

If you're worried about text file sizes, remember they pale into insignificance compared to digital photographs/media etc. To keep photos/scanned documents to a minimum size I use Photoshop's Save For Web, which reduces file size significantly and thereby allows FH to load quicker. I find the Save For Web quality is perfectly adequate for FH's needs.

Brian

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 12 Nov 2009 08:09

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your comments. Yes, I always use the 'Save for Web' function in PS on pictures and keep all my media files in a carefully constructed tree which also contains the FH project files structure (I don't 'copy files into' when saving a media link).

The point I was getting at originally though is - are we worried about swelling our GEDCOM files with source data such as the body of emails, or is it better practise to always keep them externally and link to the source record as media and just accept the inconvenience of having to fire up Notebook or similar to view the email ? I have always felt in principle that a GEDCOM should be no more than names, dates and links to source files rather than a container for actual source data.

Programs like FH now allow us to store data within the GEDCOMs, improving accessibility, but at the expense of GEDCOM size. I suppose 'Notes' is another case in point.

Cheers,
Geoff.

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 29 Nov 2009 22:25

gbrowne said:
...I have always felt in principle that a GEDCOM should be no more than names, dates and links to source files rather than a container for actual source data.

Programs like FH now allow us to store data within the GEDCOMs, improving accessibility, but at the expense of GEDCOM size. I suppose 'Notes' is another case in point.

The principle of GEDCOM was to facilitate the transfer from members of the Mormon church to their temples. The genealogical aspects came along later and now will not be developed any further as the LDS have pretty much given up on developing for the needs of anyone else other than themselves.

As for the size of the GEDCOM, mine is around 13Mb in size with around 70K individuals and associated source records, notes and images (the only things along with original documents stored externally). My only concern about the size is the fact that FH holds the whole file in memory whilst open. So it means that FH's memory footprint is over 100Mb on my PC. Not too much of a problem with gigs of RAM, but it does make for an extremely long task switch time if FH has been switched out of RAM into the swapfile - FH is quicker at starting from scratch than switching back into memory.

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 30 Nov 2009 10:09

Hi Jon,

JonAxtell said:
...mine is around 13Mb in size with around 70K individuals and associated source records, notes and images (the only things along with original documents stored externally).

So, to be clear - it's only image files that you store externally?

I can see that keeping notes and emails etc within the GEDCOM makes them searchable from within FH, which is much quicker/tidier than firing up an external search and reader.

You are obviously a pretty serious user so, in hindsight Jon, are you still happy that you have everything in the one file, or if you were starting again, would you keep emails and lengthy notes in a file structure seperate from the GEDCOM ?

On the file size issue, I would also imagine it would make Gedcom Census very slow when it posts back the finished new census record ? My GEDCOM is only just over 2Mb but it still takes about a second to update.

Cheers,
Geoff.

Post by **nsw** » 30 Nov 2009 10:32

gbrowne said:
On the file size issue, I would also imagine it would make Gedcom Census very slow when it posts back the finished new census record ? My GEDCOM is only just over 2Mb but it still takes about a second to update.

I'm sure it is slow. The replacement for Gedcom Census that I'm writing saves much more quickly and doesn't then require the file to be reloaded following the save so the whole process is much faster.

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 30 Nov 2009 10:36

Great stuff Nick - GC is a real boon to anyone using FH. I wasn't complaining about the delay, just pointing out that waiting for an even larger GEDCOM to update might become a problem.

Cheers,
Geoff.

Post by **nsw** » 30 Nov 2009 11:09

Don't worry Geoff I didn't take it as a criticism - just a statement of fact! GC is slow if you have big files

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 02 Dec 2009 20:25

gbrowne said:
So, to be clear - it's only image files that you store externally?

Yes and documents such as PDFs etc that I have downloaded.

gbrowne said:
You are obviously a pretty serious user so, in hindsight Jon, are you still happy that you have everything in the one file, or if you were starting again, would you keep emails and lengthy notes in a file structure seperate from the GEDCOM ?

Looking back I would keep them in a seperate place but only because FH is seriously lacking in it's text search capability.

gbrowne said:
On the file size issue, I would also imagine it would make Gedcom Census very slow when it posts back the finished new census record ? My GEDCOM is only just over 2Mb but it still takes about a second to update.

Yes, I've given up using GC because it just couldn't handle my situation.

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 03 Dec 2009 07:45

JonAxtell said:
...Looking back I would keep them in a seperate place but only because FH is seriously lacking in it's text search capability.

That's interesting Jon, I was taking searching as an argument FOR embedding emails etc. I find it quite convenient to search the whole database for text from within FH without firing up an external search tool. What do you find lacking in FH's search ? (apart from regex which would be great)

Cheers,
Geoff.

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 03 Dec 2009 21:07

Regex for one would be very useful, but just a basic AND/OR structure would be just as useful.

Currently typing a search phrase means that all records containing the phrase's words would be found, even if they are not consecutive nor all exist in the record. Records also containing superset words are found. Eg. 'london bridge' would find 'a bridge in london' and 'london, england' as well as 'londoninium'. All this means that if you have more than a smattering of records or specifiy a very specific search phrase (in which case what are searching for?) it basically useless and a joke.

Post by **Anonymous** » 03 Dec 2009 21:26

[message withdrawn]

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 04 Dec 2009 07:44

Anonymous,

Good news: one of the features of FH is that it doesn't have a proprietary file format. As you enter data, it just updates your GEDCOM file. A GEDCOM file can be read by any other genealogy programme thats worth its salt. You could even open it with a text editor to retrieve information as long as you were careful not to accidentally change anything.

Geoff.

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 04 Dec 2009 07:48

Jon,

Yes agreed on the searching capabilities of FH. I wonder why it is so weak in this area? Would anyone from CP care to comment ?

I suppose given the quantity and complexity of searches I tend to do, using the inbuilt search tool is just about usable and is still more convenient than firing up (say) Windows search - though as Marmine says it can search inside PDFs.

JonAxtell said:
Regex for one would be very useful, but just a basic AND/OR structure would be just as useful...

Post by **Anonymous** » 04 Dec 2009 08:03

[message withdrawn]

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