* Media and addresses / Places

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Fred
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Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 05 Sep 2020 16:07

Hi All,
It's been a while since my last post but I have a problem that I've been staring at for the past 2 hours and haven't yet resolved. :shock:
So I thought I'd share it as I'm pretty sure it will be a very simple answer.....heregoes:
I want to add images of street maps to the places my ancestors lived (in this case a smallish area of Manchester). I'd like to be able to do this once for each place and have it then appear as available media for each of the relevent rellies Property Box details ....essentially being attached to any Fact that is linked to that address/place....as opposed to having to attach the media to each individuals rellies Facts.
I've been trying to do it via: View> Record Lists> Places but can't find a way to attach the media to the place at the foundation level.
Any thoughts as to how best to do this?
Thanks in advance.

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LornaCraig
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by LornaCraig » 05 Sep 2020 16:59

Select the Place in the records list and click on it to open its Property Box. There is a Media tab on the Property Box just like the ones for other record types. You can add the Media there.

The media linked to the Place record won't be accessible from facts tab of the individual's Property Box because it is not linked directly to the fact or to the source/citation, but it can be displayed in reports. (Use report options> Pictures tab and under 'Other' Picture types tick Places.)
Lorna

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 05 Sep 2020 17:53

Hi Lorna,

Thanks for the tip...i knew it would be simple. However, it does seem odd that I won't be able to access/see the media from an individuals properties box as that seems to defeat the object of being able to link it as a one time effort in the first place....so is there maybe a reason that I am missing as to why FH would/should not do this?
Thanks again.

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tatewise
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by tatewise » 05 Sep 2020 18:12

Although not instant, there is a fairly short route to the Place record Media.

Select any Fact and double-click its Place box to open the Place List dialogue.
Click the View in Property Box button at the bottom and open its Media tab.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 06 Sep 2020 10:02

hi Mike,

Thanks for that. The only issue with both of these solutions is of course that there is no indicator within an individuals Properties box that there media is attached and so it means a speculative dive using the method you mention in each individual case. In my mind this is far from ideal and I guess I'm a bit surprised there isn't a simple way of attaching AND showing the presence of media, for static things like places. I get that there could be changes in a particular place over time and so maybe you wouldn't want to show say an 1880 image against a Fact that was for say for 1960, but I think even that is arguable, as more often than not I would want to see how a particular place may have developed over time.
So maybe this is something I need to get added to the FH developers Wish List.
I'd appreciate any more thoughts or potential solutions from the user community.
Thanks heaps to both so far. :D

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AdrianBruce
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by AdrianBruce » 06 Sep 2020 10:32

My initial, vague thoughts: An interesting point. I guess I've never really thought of place-related media as being that linked to the person - it's just bonus material that appears in a narrative report and nowhere else(????), so I'd only look for its appearance if I run off a narrative.

On the other hand, wouldn't an icon by the side of the place item on the Individual / Fact tab make it clearer and encourage me to actually put some media against places? Though I'm also thinking that (for me) most such media would be against an address, which doesn't have an independent existence (unlike places - sort of), so my address-media would be against the fact - which I can do - and see - now.

Hmmm. Interesting - I think there is scope - though I'm not yet clear for what!
Adrian

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by tatewise » 06 Sep 2020 10:53

I believe Place Media can appear in any of the Reports that involve Places and not just Narrative Reports.

I was thinking along similar lines that a clickable Media icon next to the Place field would be a good idea.
If not there, then add an option to Include Place Media in the Media for Fact dialogue from the Show Media button.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 06 Sep 2020 11:20

Through the ages I've had various ancestors who have lived either at the same place and in some cases the same address and so being able to have a visible link from the individuals properties box to a media file would seem to be a good thing to me. :?:

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by laz_gen » 06 Sep 2020 15:53

I see this slightly differently.

The original question was a wish to add street maps to places where ancestors lived but places are geographical locations i.e. villages, towns and cities. I use the Places feature for geographical locations and Addresses for the addresses of houses, building, churches etc. within those villages, town and cities.

Ideally I would like to add an image of the church where an ancestor was baptised or buried, so attached to an Address but it isn't possible to add an image to an address, only to a place. (Unless I am missing something).

Unless Fred is using the Places table for both places and addresses which I think a lot of users do.

I have thought of this as a shortcoming that Addresses just appear to be a basic list rather than a full database table.

I wonder if things will change in V7.

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 06 Sep 2020 16:07

I actually do both :o
So in one Project file I use Places for everything (addresses and places) and in another I use them separately.

At present it looks there really is no feature that allows media to be attached to either and then have it readily visible within an individuals Property Facts. Therefore the only way at present that I can think of is to laboriously and individually attach the media to each of the relevant people in my file :o :shock:
I think this is a bit of an oversight and so will put it forward as a new Wish List item.

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by tatewise » 06 Sep 2020 17:24

There is a workaround that some have employed by using Source Citations.
The idea is that you create a Source record in which you record details about that Address and attach images to the Media tab just like most Sources.
Then for every fact that is associated with that Address add a Citation to that Source.
That way the Media icon appears against the fact and the Show Media button reveals the image.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 06 Sep 2020 17:48

Thanks for that, and whilst that would work, I guess it still leaves me faced with attaching this new source individually to 4,000+ records (I'd like to have street maps attached to every person that I can in my tree)......that's why I was hoping to do it via the Places in the Records List. So i think your suggestion is something I'd look at doing for new person adds.

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BobWard
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by BobWard » 06 Sep 2020 21:03

I use the method that Mike suggested above, i.e., I create a Source record for each Place in my database and then attach media file(s) to that Source record. Then, everytime that I add that Place record to an individual's profile, the Source record and pictures come along automatically. BTW, I include addresses as part of the Place record, i.e., I do not use the Address box.

I also use the Note box for each Place record to write a detailed discussion of that Place. I also manually code the Lat/Long coordinates in order to make sure that I have the exact Place location mapped correctly.

I have 1,526 Place records in my database that have been created this way. As long as you create the Source record as part of the Place record creation, it is not a big "time consumer" to me. However, I did not start using this procedure until I had already created several hundred Place records in FH. So, yes, there was some time involved in going back and adding the Source records and media files to those old records. But, it was something that I wanted to do to clean up my database, so I just set aside some time and got the job done over the course of 5 or 6 weeks.

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 06 Sep 2020 21:52

Thanks...I will definitely look at this for all the new places I create, but at the moment, the thought of even starting to tackle some 4,000+ existing entries just fills me with dread. I think my next step is to start looking at other Genealogy programmes to see if they provide better functionality in this area and if they do, I may consider transferring my GED over to that.
Thanks again for all the feedback.

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BobWard
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by BobWard » 07 Sep 2020 02:34

I'm probably missing something here, but if you have 4,000 entries (Place records?) that you have not yet attached images to, aren't you still going to have to invest the time to attach images to those 4,000 entries (Place records?) no matter what genealogy program you might use?

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by tatewise » 07 Sep 2020 08:52

Bob, I suspect Fred means he has 4,000+ facts that have a Place/Address to which a Source Citation needs to be attached if using the Source record technique.

If he could attach Media to Place records (which are shared by many facts) and make those Media visible in the Facts tab then he would need far fewer changes, i.e. the same number as the Source records needed for the alternative technique.
It is adding all the Citations that is extra, and which would be avoided if Place Media could be inspected easily.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 07 Sep 2020 09:53

Mike has it spot on......"If he could attach Media to Place records (which are shared by many facts) and make those Media visible in the Facts tab then he would need far fewer changes, i.e. the same number as the Source records needed for the alternative technique".

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 07 Sep 2020 12:15

Just as a matter of interest....if an idea gets accepted to the Wish List is there any rule of thumb as to how long it might take to get deployed into FH...are we talking months, years etc (I know it depends on complexity, but thinking this might be a simpler one)?

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by ColeValleyGirl » 07 Sep 2020 12:26

Nothing on the Wish List is guaranteed to get implemented, even if it gets a significant number of votes. The direction the product takes is up to Calico Pie. We know they do consider items on the Wish List when making their development plans, but it is by no means a 'Todo' List for them.

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 07 Sep 2020 16:19

oh blow.....unfortunately this is the first time I have found FH wanting in all my years of use. What's really disappointing is that I have been collecting all the media ready for this to be the next big project to complete on my tree and never for one minute did I think it would be a problem doing something as 'simple' as attaching media to places and having it visible in the individuals properties. I guess that'll teach me for not doing my homework much earlier :(

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by tatewise » 07 Sep 2020 21:50

Before committing too much time to whatever technique you decide is best, perhaps wait until FH V7 is released, which cannot be too long now as it is in beta test. It is impossible to say whether FH V7 will offer anything to help with your dilemma, but you would be gutted if it did and you had spent hours using a different method.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by AdrianBruce » 08 Sep 2020 12:34

I'm still not quite sure exactly what you want to do, Fred, so excuse me if I miss the point. But if I think about adding street maps to localities then it might be feasible to work from the "other end", i.e. from the place-records, visible in the Records Window.

If I go to that Place Records tab and filter on a place name of Manchester, it brings up my list of localities in Manchester (because I've used a 4 part name, e.g. "Hulme, Manchester, Lancashire, England".) I could then add a map image to this place (in my case, I'll drag the image onto the Media tab of the Place property box). This will ensure that any narrative report that uses "Hulme, Manchester, Lancashire, England" as a place-name will show that map image in the "appropriate" position.

The issue with that method is that, out of the box, FH doesn't make it easy to see whether any media have been attached to a place record. That can be solved by adding a column to the Place Records tab that shows the count of media items attached to each place record. To do this, right-click the bar with the headings for the columns in the Place Records tab and choose "Configure columns..." In the resulting window, you use the left-hand side to choose what you want to show - in this case, you need to select "<Other....>" right down at the bottom.

Having selected it, click the ">" button to move it over and you'll get a dialog box "Add Column". This is what I entered into that box:
Annotation 2020-09-08 132005.jpg
Annotation 2020-09-08 132005.jpg (67.21 KiB) Viewed 10750 times
Click "OK" after, of course. The Media Count will show how many media items you've attached to that place so you can check to see if you've attached the map image or not. Except that's tricky if you add both a map and a town centre image (say) - it won't tell you which if the count is only one - you'd have to open up the Place property box and look at the media tab.

Doing it from this end, if you put a map against each place-name (using filtering to identify your target places), then you know that any report using that exact place-name will show the map.

Now, I said I'm not sure exactly what you want to do and this method will only work with place-names (i.e. in the Place Records tab). It won't work with addresses because they don't have an independent existence. And it won't work if you want specific maps shown against specific events. Nor does it give immediate access to the image from the events.

But if this method of adding media to the place would suffice then it cuts down the workload since you only need to work with each place, not each person or each event. Maybe?
Adrian

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by LornaCraig » 08 Sep 2020 14:05

Adrian, Fred's point is that he wants to be able to access the Place media easily from the Individual's facts tab. Currently the 'More' column in the facts tab has an icon displayed if there are any media items attached to the either fact itself or to the Source or the Citation for the fact. These can be viewed by clicking on the icon to open the Media for Fact window where there are options to include the Source Record media and/or the Citation media. What is needed is an option to include media linked to the Place used in the fact. (Either that or a clickable icon next to the Place field).
Lorna

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Fred
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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by Fred » 08 Sep 2020 14:56

Spot on Lorna :)

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Re: Media and addresses / Places

Post by AdrianBruce » 08 Sep 2020 18:54

LornaCraig wrote:
08 Sep 2020 14:05
Adrian, Fred's point is that he wants to be able to access the Place media easily from the Individual's facts tab. ...
Yes. But... At the risk of infuriating Fred - that's a solution. It doesn't explain to me what the requirements are. NB - I was hassled many times for specifying a solution when I should have been documenting requirements. The point made to me was that the requirements might have been satisfied in several different ways.

The requirement here that I saw was producing map-images and linking them to events(?) for display ... somewhere. If the maps relate to places (as in place-records), then coming at it from that end might be a solution. If the maps relate to addresses or events, then my idea isn't any use as a solution. If you want to go from an event while in FH to see the map, then it won't help. But I don't know what the requirement is. Forgive me but I'm trying to make people think (myself included) to see if at least something might be possible in the current software.

The proposed solution looks quite nice, actually, but it's a general purpose solution. Being able to access place media from the individual might seem logical but if, if, if all you're doing that for is to audit for the presence of maps, why do it from every individual linked to that place?
Adrian

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