* Last Updated - question

[Valkrider]

I had an unsourced marriage date and location for a couple. I tracked down the PR for the marriage and then used AS to create a new marriage record for this couple.

Last updated in the Records window for the Families tab shows the family record as being updated on the day that I changed the marriage event. In the Individuals tab the Last Updated for the Individuals shows a day some time in the past when I last did something to the individuals record.

Whilst I accept that I have changed the family record I would have expected the individuals last updated to show the date that I made the change too. Or am I expecting too much of FH?

[davidf]

I suspect that the Individual record is unchanged - all it has surely is the FAMS tag inserted when the Family was first created in FH? Changing a Family Fact would not change this?

[Mark1834]

That's tripped me up in the past. Making a change to a family record does not update the timestamp for the husband/father or wife/mother. While I can see that it may not always be appropriate to update the individual record, I think it is fair to say that getting married or divorced is probably a fairly significant event in that person's timeline!

FWIW, RM does the same, so it is not unique to FH.

[davidf]

This is where we are up against the difference between a "real person's record" and a record that is part of a data entity! (I think the list discussion at the moment on TMG imports may be up against a similar problem but coming at it from the opposite direction!)

The last updated field at the moment is very much a "data management field" rather than a genealogical field. In theory it is probably possible to add code logic that says "when a family field is created/updated/deleted, 'touch' the FAMS Tag in the relevant individual records to create an "updated" event. But is that what people would want? (I presume that this is not currently the case)

When a child is added to a family record (FAMC) do we want the parent's "Last Update" field updated (a) When the child is added or linked, and/or (b) when the child's birth date is entered/amended/deleted? (I'm sure mothers would say that they were closely involved in such an event!)

If we set someone, say X, as a witness to an event in the record of, say Y, would we also want X's record "last updated" field to reflect that they were recorded in Y's record as a witness?

[Gowermick]

Davidf,
Whilst I don’t disagree with what you are saying, adding a child does not involve adding a fact to an individual per se, and is not listed as a fact for the mother or father in their facts Tab whereas one does add a ‘marriage’ fact to the individuals concerned.
Perhaps this is why they are given a red dot in the facts list, to indicate they do not belong to the individual, but to the couple. Hence individual has not been ‘updated’!

[tatewise]

There is all manner of things displayed in the Individual Property Box, such as:

• On the Main tab: Spouse & Child details
• On the Facts tab: Fact Witness (blue arrow) and Timeline (grey bullet) facts
• On the Facts tab: Media icons in the More column for Media linked to Source records

So where do we draw the line of changes that should alter the Individual Update date/time?
Similar considerations apply to most other records regarding related changes.

[Mark1834]

It's not a difficult situation to manage, but it does mean that plugins and queries that search for significant events in a person's life have to check both the individual and all families to which they are a party.

I think this general topic has come up before, and whichever way around it is set, somebody will get upset because they would design the program differently... .

[davidf]

Perhaps this is why they are given a blue dot in the facts list, to indicate they do not belong to the individual, but to the couple. Hence individual has not been ‘updated’!

I think that is just it!
[drafted simultaneously with Mike]

The User Interface may be arranged such that you appear to be easily able to add "family" facts to one of the partners, but behind the scenes it is identifying the "family" concerned (if necessary prompting for the spouse name) and then adding the fact to the correct family record.

The "Facts Tab" for an individual can display a lot of "facts":

• Facts relating to that individual (blue dot)
• Facts relating to that individual as a spouse (red dot)
• Facts relating to others in their families (where they are a child/parent/grandparent) (white dot)
• Facts in other's records to which they were "a witness" (blue arrow)

The "Facts Tab" for a family (select from Records Window Family Tab or via an individual's All tab and click through to a "Parent's Family" or "Spouse Family") will have "red dot" facts.

[davidf]

It's not a difficult situation to manage, but it does mean that plugins and queries that search for significant events in a person's life have to check both the individual and all families to which they are a party.

That is why with Queries you have to start by thinking "do I want an Individual or a Family or ..." query.

Mike may come back with how you can use data references (see help) to find a FAMS reference tag in an Individual record and then by reference jump through to the associated Family Facts (things like %INDI.~SPOU[1+]>% or %INDI.FAMS[1+]>MARR.DATE:COMPACT%).

[Mark1834]

Mike may come back with how you can...

I don't doubt it for a second, but at the risk of sounding like a BBC presenter, other advisors are available...