My apologies if the answer to this question is in plain sight somewhere, but so far I have not found it.
I am having problems getting some facts into the correct order. So as an example, for a marriage, I have created some custom facts, eg I can record the witnesses, the priest etc.
As they all pertain to a specific event their dates are all the same.
I find that when they have all been entered and sorted by date, they are in less than desirable order; Occupation (Standard), Witnessed (custom), Residence(standard) witnessed (custom) Performed - priest (custom) Marriage (standard)
Now imagine this lot in an individual report!! - with the actual event appearing last ...
I have seen other posts relating to the 'List in Record Order' button followed by use of the move buttons. However I find that when I press the list button the standard Marriage entry drops to the bottom of the entire facts list (along with Birth of children facts) - when I hilite the Marriage fact then the move buttons are greyed out meaning I cannot move the line to where I want it!
Does anyone know a method by which I can create a more sensible order? Or even better when creating custom facts, a method of giving each fact a weighting factor so that when there are several facts under the same date then they will appear in a preferred order?
ID:5064
* Facts - sort order
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tatewise
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Facts - sort order
I sympathise with your frustration.
The first thing to realise is that their are three types of Fact shown under the Property Box Facts tab.
1) Individual Facts - these have a blue bullet on their left.
2) Family Facts - these have a red bullet on their left.
3) Child Facts - these have a silver bullet on their left.
The Individual Facts reside only in the Individual Record of the person.
The Family Facts reside only in the Spouse Family Record, but also shown in both husband & wife Individual Facts lists.
The Child Facts reside only in the Individual Record of the child, but also shown in both parents Individual and Family Facts lists.
When you select the List in Record Order button, the Facts are listed in the precedence order above (blue, red, silver).
Within each Record type they are listed in Date order.
You can use the Up/Down arrow keys to re-order the Facts within one Record type.
However, if you use Menu > Re-order Facts by Date or Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data the Facts will return to Date order, but those with the same Date will remember your selected order.
When you deselect the List in Record Order button, the Facts are listed in Date order with all three types merged together.
Facts with the same Date are listed according to the rules above:- first by type (blue, red, silver), and then by your selected order.
So, if you want to control the Fact order, they must be the same Type, or you must alter their Date.
Taking your example Facts, here are my suggestions.
Occupation - Presumably from Marriage Certificate, so does apply before Marriage, otherwise alter the Date as necessary.
Residence - Similar to Occupation above.
Witnessed - Presumably who witnessed the Marriage - this should be a Family Fact as it applies to the Family Marriage Event, not one Individual.
Performed-Priest - Similar to Witnessed above.
Marriage - This is a Family Fact already.
With these changes, the Occupation and Residence Individual Facts will occur before/after Marriage and other Family Facts depending on their Date.
If they both have the same Date you can select which one comes first.
The Witnessed, Performed-Priest, and Marriage Family Facts, having the same Date can be in any order you select.
The first thing to realise is that their are three types of Fact shown under the Property Box Facts tab.
1) Individual Facts - these have a blue bullet on their left.
2) Family Facts - these have a red bullet on their left.
3) Child Facts - these have a silver bullet on their left.
The Individual Facts reside only in the Individual Record of the person.
The Family Facts reside only in the Spouse Family Record, but also shown in both husband & wife Individual Facts lists.
The Child Facts reside only in the Individual Record of the child, but also shown in both parents Individual and Family Facts lists.
When you select the List in Record Order button, the Facts are listed in the precedence order above (blue, red, silver).
Within each Record type they are listed in Date order.
You can use the Up/Down arrow keys to re-order the Facts within one Record type.
However, if you use Menu > Re-order Facts by Date or Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data the Facts will return to Date order, but those with the same Date will remember your selected order.
When you deselect the List in Record Order button, the Facts are listed in Date order with all three types merged together.
Facts with the same Date are listed according to the rules above:- first by type (blue, red, silver), and then by your selected order.
So, if you want to control the Fact order, they must be the same Type, or you must alter their Date.
Taking your example Facts, here are my suggestions.
Occupation - Presumably from Marriage Certificate, so does apply before Marriage, otherwise alter the Date as necessary.
Residence - Similar to Occupation above.
Witnessed - Presumably who witnessed the Marriage - this should be a Family Fact as it applies to the Family Marriage Event, not one Individual.
Performed-Priest - Similar to Witnessed above.
Marriage - This is a Family Fact already.
With these changes, the Occupation and Residence Individual Facts will occur before/after Marriage and other Family Facts depending on their Date.
If they both have the same Date you can select which one comes first.
The Witnessed, Performed-Priest, and Marriage Family Facts, having the same Date can be in any order you select.
Facts - sort order
Thankyou Tatewise - I shall have to think how I'll play this one! I have a lot of witnessed & performed records that would effectively have to be recreated to make them family records and I suppose it goes against the grain to record dates other than those actually on the certificates.
Decisions decisions!!
Sue
Decisions decisions!!
Sue
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AdrianBruce
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Facts - sort order
Re Residence and Occupation from a marriage - I would always record these as being 'TO marriage-date', so they would be shown first. Which is fine for _me_ because they apply like that in my mind - it's their residence and occupation before the marriage that's recorded.
Interesting about the witnessed and priest attributes. Again, _personally_ I'd see no virtue in making these separate attributes, I just record them as comments within the text of the note for the event. Therefore (and this sounds horribly like 'I'm alright Jack') I don't have those problems and you might care to consider putting them into the notes rather than re-creating them as a different type of event.
I'm actually no fan of splitting minor details out as separate events / attributes as it plays havoc with the readability of narrative reports. Consider someone's military career - if the career is written as 1 attribute with a start date of volunteering and end date of conscription, and you were to record a promotion event during the middle of that service, then you'd get a narrative report that left the promotion until after demob which is odd, to say the least. I just add it in as a part of the note.
As I say, probably no comfort to you with lots of stuff now but it's at least worth considering for future data entry.
Interesting about the witnessed and priest attributes. Again, _personally_ I'd see no virtue in making these separate attributes, I just record them as comments within the text of the note for the event. Therefore (and this sounds horribly like 'I'm alright Jack') I don't have those problems and you might care to consider putting them into the notes rather than re-creating them as a different type of event.
I'm actually no fan of splitting minor details out as separate events / attributes as it plays havoc with the readability of narrative reports. Consider someone's military career - if the career is written as 1 attribute with a start date of volunteering and end date of conscription, and you were to record a promotion event during the middle of that service, then you'd get a narrative report that left the promotion until after demob which is odd, to say the least. I just add it in as a part of the note.
As I say, probably no comfort to you with lots of stuff now but it's at least worth considering for future data entry.
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tatewise
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Facts - sort order
I tend to agree with the points that Adrian Bruce has made.
The Date on the Residence and Occupation facts is not so important, because these Individual Facts will always precede the Family Facts such as Marriage that have the same Date.
However, this does not resolve your problem with the order of sentences in Narrative Reports, but here is an idea.
Eliminate all your Witnessed and Performed facts, and just use the Marriage event, but alter its Sentence Template as follows, which will define the sentence that appears in Narrative Reports.
Use Tools > Work with Fact Sets, select the Standard Marriage Event, and click the Properties button.
In the Template field add to the end of the existing text, and click OK and Close.
This allows you to add the names of the clergyman and witnesses to the Marriage Fact Note field.
Until these are added the Sentence retains its original format, because the brackets make it dependent on the Note field.
e.g.
Note field contains Rev.A.Minister and Jack & Jill Smith
Sentence ends in ...Exeter, Devon. The clergyman and witnesses were Rev.A.Minister and Jack & Jill Smith.
If you want to further alter any sentence, you can click in the Fact Sentence field and customise the Template uniquely for each individual Fact.
The Date on the Residence and Occupation facts is not so important, because these Individual Facts will always precede the Family Facts such as Marriage that have the same Date.
However, this does not resolve your problem with the order of sentences in Narrative Reports, but here is an idea.
Eliminate all your Witnessed and Performed facts, and just use the Marriage event, but alter its Sentence Template as follows, which will define the sentence that appears in Narrative Reports.
Use Tools > Work with Fact Sets, select the Standard Marriage Event, and click the Properties button.
In the Template field add to the end of the existing text, and click OK and Close.
This allows you to add the names of the clergyman and witnesses to the Marriage Fact Note field.
Until these are added the Sentence retains its original format, because the brackets make it dependent on the Note field.
e.g.
Note field contains Rev.A.Minister and Jack & Jill Smith
Sentence ends in ...Exeter, Devon. The clergyman and witnesses were Rev.A.Minister and Jack & Jill Smith.
If you want to further alter any sentence, you can click in the Fact Sentence field and customise the Template uniquely for each individual Fact.
Facts - sort order
I like having the marriage witnesses in a separate fact/field it makes it easy to find them via a custom query.
What I do though is record the witnesses in the marriage notes along with all the other detail from the certificate etc and then I insert an individual fact 'Marriage Witness' under the witness' record.
Of course it isn't always possible to use the indivdual fact if the family uses a first name many times and there is no way to be postive who is the witness.
Love the fact template idea '' I changed it to and did a couple of other tweaks and the narrative for marriage witnesses now flows properly. 'On 13 Jul 1869 at ------ Isabella was a witness at the marriage of her future sister-in -law Martha Alice Stacey and Alfred Thomas Stains'
Thanks for the idea!
Anna
[grin]
What I do though is record the witnesses in the marriage notes along with all the other detail from the certificate etc and then I insert an individual fact 'Marriage Witness' under the witness' record.
Of course it isn't always possible to use the indivdual fact if the family uses a first name many times and there is no way to be postive who is the witness.
Love the fact template idea '' I changed it to and did a couple of other tweaks and the narrative for marriage witnesses now flows properly. 'On 13 Jul 1869 at ------ Isabella was a witness at the marriage of her future sister-in -law Martha Alice Stacey and Alfred Thomas Stains'
Thanks for the idea!
Anna
[grin]
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tatewise
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Facts - sort order
On the same theme here are some other thoughts.
In your original posting you talked about your custom Witness and Priest Events appearing in Reports in less than desirable order.
If the Marriage Event Sentence now says everything you need, you may wish to exclude theser custom Events from Reports.
Two ways to prevent your custom Witness and Priest Events producing Report narrative are:
a) Adjust the Report Options by editing Events/Attributes Lists to exclude Witness and Priest events.
b) Work with Fact Sets to set their Sentence Templates to which yields no output unless you Add Cause via the All tab (unlikely).
Since you have altered the Standard Fact Set Marriage Event, it needs to be backed up, in case it needs reinstalling.
Unfortunately, there is no File > Import/Export > Export > Fact Set option for the Standard Fact Set.
One option is to create a duplicate Marriage Event with the new Template in your Custom Fact Set and Export your Custom Fact Set.
The Standard Marriage Event can be restored to Installation Settings because your custom event will override it.
Alternatively, you could backup the folder C:ProgramDataCalico PieFamily HistorianFact TypesStandard which holds the Standard.fhf file.
In fact keeping a backup copy of the entire C:ProgramDataCalico PieFamily Historian folder is not a bad idea.
Moving on to your need to Query the Witnesses and Priest to a Marriage, here are some ideas.
Lets assume you adopt the concept of a single Marriage Event with a Citation Source Record.
In the Source Record its Text From Source field usually holds a labelled transcript of the Marriage Certificate.
e.g.
Place: Parish Church
District: Romsey
When: 9th March 1876
etc, etc, etc.
Witnesses: John Smith & Janet Jones
Married by: Rev. A. Vicar
Then the following Fact Query will list Witnesses using the =GetLabelledText() function.
Columns
Owner =GetRecord(%FACT%)
Fact %Fact%
Witnesses =GetLabelledText(%FACT.SOUR>TEXT%,'Witnesses: ')
Rows Filter
Add if =FactName() matches 'Marriage'.
Exclude if =GetLabelledText(%FACT.SOUR>TEXT%,'Witnesses: ') is null.
This example assumes the 1st Citation Source Record references the Marriage Certificate, but could be modified to include 2nd or 3rd Citations.
A similar Query would work for the 'Married by:' label in order to list the Priests.
Versions of Ancestral Sources will eventually be available to help create this form of Marriage Source Record, as well as Birth, Baptism, Death & Burial.
Within AS the Text From Source label Template will be customisable for your choice of labels.
In your original posting you talked about your custom Witness and Priest Events appearing in Reports in less than desirable order.
If the Marriage Event Sentence now says everything you need, you may wish to exclude theser custom Events from Reports.
Two ways to prevent your custom Witness and Priest Events producing Report narrative are:
a) Adjust the Report Options by editing Events/Attributes Lists to exclude Witness and Priest events.
b) Work with Fact Sets to set their Sentence Templates to which yields no output unless you Add Cause via the All tab (unlikely).
Since you have altered the Standard Fact Set Marriage Event, it needs to be backed up, in case it needs reinstalling.
Unfortunately, there is no File > Import/Export > Export > Fact Set option for the Standard Fact Set.
One option is to create a duplicate Marriage Event with the new Template in your Custom Fact Set and Export your Custom Fact Set.
The Standard Marriage Event can be restored to Installation Settings because your custom event will override it.
Alternatively, you could backup the folder C:ProgramDataCalico PieFamily HistorianFact TypesStandard which holds the Standard.fhf file.
In fact keeping a backup copy of the entire C:ProgramDataCalico PieFamily Historian folder is not a bad idea.
Moving on to your need to Query the Witnesses and Priest to a Marriage, here are some ideas.
Lets assume you adopt the concept of a single Marriage Event with a Citation Source Record.
In the Source Record its Text From Source field usually holds a labelled transcript of the Marriage Certificate.
e.g.
Place: Parish Church
District: Romsey
When: 9th March 1876
etc, etc, etc.
Witnesses: John Smith & Janet Jones
Married by: Rev. A. Vicar
Then the following Fact Query will list Witnesses using the =GetLabelledText() function.
Columns
Owner =GetRecord(%FACT%)
Fact %Fact%
Witnesses =GetLabelledText(%FACT.SOUR>TEXT%,'Witnesses: ')
Rows Filter
Add if =FactName() matches 'Marriage'.
Exclude if =GetLabelledText(%FACT.SOUR>TEXT%,'Witnesses: ') is null.
This example assumes the 1st Citation Source Record references the Marriage Certificate, but could be modified to include 2nd or 3rd Citations.
A similar Query would work for the 'Married by:' label in order to list the Priests.
Versions of Ancestral Sources will eventually be available to help create this form of Marriage Source Record, as well as Birth, Baptism, Death & Burial.
Within AS the Text From Source label Template will be customisable for your choice of labels.
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tatewise
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Facts - sort order
Postscript
If you choose to create your own Custom Marriage Fact then there is some benefit in creating an Attribute rather than an Event.
This adds a {value} field that can be used in a similar way and in addition to the {note} field in the Sentence Template.
However, the Custom Marriage Attribute does not automatically replace the Standard Marriage Event and every existing Marriage Event will need to be edited to be a Marriage Attribute.
This can be achieved by a global text edit to the GEDCOM .ged file.
In addition the Standard Marriage Event can be Hidden to avoid its use.
If you choose to create your own Custom Marriage Fact then there is some benefit in creating an Attribute rather than an Event.
This adds a {value} field that can be used in a similar way and in addition to the {note} field in the Sentence Template.
However, the Custom Marriage Attribute does not automatically replace the Standard Marriage Event and every existing Marriage Event will need to be edited to be a Marriage Attribute.
This can be achieved by a global text edit to the GEDCOM .ged file.
In addition the Standard Marriage Event can be Hidden to avoid its use.
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jackindy
Facts - sort order
If I click on the column header 'Date' in the property window, all fact dates appear in date order. The problem I am having is with custom facts taht I have created that are attributes and have no date (for example, I have a special code number for some family members). I can't figure out the rationale for their placement order. I would like for these to appear at the end of the dated facts. But the move arrow is grayed when I click on these custom facts (attributes), so I can't move them up or down. Can anyone suggest a solution?
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Jane
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Facts - sort order
Undated Facts normally appear at the bottom of the list. You could experiment with using a date phrase and adding an interpreted as value, but you would need to make sure the Sentence template excluded the date field.
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tatewise
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Facts - sort order
I hate to contradict Jane, who is usually spot-on with replies.
However, I find that undated Individual Facts are listed in Record Order in the Individual Property Box, and undated Family Facts are listed in Record Order in the Family Property Box. Note that Record Order is initially the order in which Facts are entered. Interestingly, undated Family Facts always appear last in the Individual Property Box!
Using Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data or the Property Box > Menu > Sort Family & Events in Data Order / Re-order Facts by Date sorts dated Facts into order, but undated Facts remain in situ.
To force undated Facts to appear after dated Facts, select the Property Box > List in Record Order button and use the Move Down button to move the undated Facts down as far as possible. Then deselect the List in Record Order button and click the Date column header. Now all undated Facts will appear after dated Facts.
You can achieve the same affect on the All tab, by using the Move Down button there.
You can use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place several undated Facts in the order you desire with the proviso that Individual Facts will always precede Family Facts with the same date value.
However, I find that undated Individual Facts are listed in Record Order in the Individual Property Box, and undated Family Facts are listed in Record Order in the Family Property Box. Note that Record Order is initially the order in which Facts are entered. Interestingly, undated Family Facts always appear last in the Individual Property Box!
Using Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data or the Property Box > Menu > Sort Family & Events in Data Order / Re-order Facts by Date sorts dated Facts into order, but undated Facts remain in situ.
To force undated Facts to appear after dated Facts, select the Property Box > List in Record Order button and use the Move Down button to move the undated Facts down as far as possible. Then deselect the List in Record Order button and click the Date column header. Now all undated Facts will appear after dated Facts.
You can achieve the same affect on the All tab, by using the Move Down button there.
You can use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place several undated Facts in the order you desire with the proviso that Individual Facts will always precede Family Facts with the same date value.