* New Video: All about sources in Family Historian

[NickWalker]

I've added a new video to the Ancestral Sources YouTube channel called "All about sources in Family Historian".

I started work on this a few months ago and have finally found time to finish it. It isn't really about Ancestral Sources, although I do refer to AS at various points and also show AS towards the end when I'm talking about rich text. The aim of the video is to explain some of the terminology we use on this site when we refer to sources in Family Historian, i.e. lumpers, splitters, citations, templated sources, generic sources, rich text, plain text, etc.

It ended up being quite a long video (50 mins) but the feedback so far has been positive. The link is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm6gg1HSbEs

[Mark1834]

Thanks Nick - nicely paced and clearly explained. There is definitely a place for this type of walk through of up to date features to get users started.

Spoiler alert - it strongly promotes the "Splitter" model for anything other than simple sources such as GRO Indexes, so the detailed explanation of why the FH architecture does not support lumping very well for more complex sources such as census returns might be slightly depressing viewing for RM/FTM migrants who want to preserve their old ways of working.

[NickWalker]

Thanks Nick - nicely paced and clearly explained. There is definitely a place for this type of walk through of up to date features to get users started.

Thank you - these things take ages to do as I inevitably make mistakes or stumble over words and have to start again. Also setting up the examples and the Powerpoints takes time. But I do agree this kind of thing is very useful and it would be good to have more of them covering all sorts of aspects of Family Historian.

it strongly promotes the "Splitter" model for anything other than simple sources such as GRO Indexes, so the detailed explanation of why the FH architecture does not support lumping very well for more complex sources such as census returns might be slightly depressing viewing for RM/FTM migrants who want to preserve their old ways of working.

I do say in my conclusion at the end of the video that I've tried to be balanced in terms of giving the pros and cons of each method but that there are different opinions on how things should be done as is evidenced whenever sources are discussed on the FHUG website.

But the issues I've raised about lumper source data duplication and the difficulty of accessing citations are in Family Historian are definitely true. All the built in templated sources for census, BMD, etc. are for splitter sources. Family Historian leans towards the splitter method. So it may be slightly depressing for RM/FTM migrants but that's the reality of the situation and I don't think it's me putting a spin on that. I do also say that if you've invested a lot of time in the past and you've recorded a lot of data using the lumper method and you don't want to change the way you do things then AS can still use this method, but not all features will be available. People can watch the video, see the pros and cons of each method and if things like the data duplication isn't an issue for them (perhaps they don't want to create transcriptions of sources) then lumping will work for them.

[jimlad68]

Not watched the video yet, but I intend to as after many years of TMG and FH I still do not fully understand the different methodology of Sources, I just use "simple splitter generic" sources which does all I need.
re

Family Historian leans towards the splitter method. So it may be slightly depressing for RM/FTM migrants

I recently imported some info from a Gedcom which came from Legacy with sources in the Lumper fashion. Although I will probably rekey the items, I found the plugin Lumped Source Splitter very effective, especially to 'see the wood from the trees' Tested on both the input Gedcom and a full copied project first.

[jamespam]

Another Excellent Vido Nick. Now I really know that I'm a 'splitter'!
The growing number of FH video's, and Derek Heritage's FH Zoom group emphesise the importance of video for the significant number of FH users who are primarily visual learners.

[thestarsatnight]

I think that was a very good video! I am currently just a couple of days into evaluating fh7, trying to decide whether to switch from RM7, and it was very helpful. Definitely clarified that as I switch, or even if I stay on RM7 for now, I'll become more of a splitter than I am now.

I also watched the AS videos and like it very much! Now I just need to give it a try.

[Mark1834]

If you are happy with the splitter way of working, take note of Jim's comment above, and try out the Lumped Source Splitter plugin. It was developed primarily to help users of RM and FTM (which both have a stronger bias towards lumping) convert their sources to the preferred FH splitter format.

[thestarsatnight]

Lumped Source Splitter plugin.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to do much for me. That is because I created my own custom templates that have just one "master" field (or source level field) and one to three "detail" fields (or citation level fields). When I ran the plugin against a couple of my sources, there really wasn't anything it could do.

The choices I made go back 8 or more years ago, with RM5. When I tried using the built in templates that RM had, I was unhappy with the way they exported to gedcom. If you left a field blank for example, when it exported to gedcom you might have a "data, , data" extraneous comma situation. Or other times, the fields would be out of the expected order, so the footnote didn't read properly.

Anyway, all my citations that I have created did at least import into fh7 in order. The only thing I lost was some formatting (italics; see my post in the Import/export section). So if I switch to fh7, it's just determining how I want to move forward.

[NickWalker]

Thanks for the positive feedback, much appreciated

The growing number of FH video's, and Derek Heritage's FH Zoom group emphesise the importance of video for the significant number of FH users who are primarily visual learners.

Arguably, videos like the ones I've produced really suit a number of learning styles. Visual of course, but also auditory in that I'm talking through the information. There are subtitles for those who prefer to read and write (and they can make their own notes of course). Kinesthetic learners can pause the video at any time and try things I've demonstrated out for themselves. Having said that, I know some people prefer to just read a document or web page rather than learn from a video and they may well prefer some of the knowledge base articles or reading the help pages in FH or AS.

[fhtess65]

I for one, as an RM migrant, was so happy to leave behind RM's way of doing sources...discovered I'm an extreme splitter and FH is perfect for me Looking forward to watching Nick's video as I still have a lot to learn about FH.

Thanks, Nick, for doing this

<SNIP>
Spoiler alert - it strongly promotes the "Splitter" model for anything other than simple sources such as GRO Indexes, so the detailed explanation of why the FH architecture does not support lumping very well for more complex sources such as census returns might be slightly depressing viewing for RM/FTM migrants who want to preserve their old ways of working.

[trevorrix]

Thinking Out Of The Box

The video discusses the recording of sources citations and facts by typing on the keyboard, as if that is the only possible method. There is an alternative, not often discussed.

In this digital world data storage is without limit and cheap. I simply download or scan or photograph the original sources and link those images to the people concerned. Have extensive browser bookmarks linking to multiple datasets. Make good use of descriptive folders and filenames. Keep multiple digital copies of those images saved in multiple locations, both physical and virtual. I am in control of my sources, even when the location of where those sources were found changes. An example was when Wales parish register images moved from Findmypast to Ancestry.

As the images are my sources, I have no need to transcribe them, resulting in a massive decrease in keyboard time, and more time to research. If images are available I don't copy online transcriptions because they are frequently incomplete and inaccurate.

Explanation: I am a Lumper, am media driven, don't type sources citations or facts, don't use reports, share via PDFs, work in diagrams/charts, use Ancestral Sources method 2 for census. Family Historian is fantastic - after 20 years use I am still in awe.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Trevor, I envy you if all your sources are easily readable, so you don't have to bother transcribing them (to save yourself the trouble of puzzling them out repeatedly. How would your method deal with this (which is an actual source in a friend's tree)?

Screenshot 2023-03-15 100932.jpg (40.35 KiB) Viewed 1655 times

How would somebody reviewing a PDF of your research know what the source is or where to find the original? How would they know what fact is supports?

[trevorrix]

Helen - agree this is a difficult one. There are always exceptions that need special treatment. In this case I would share the image as well as the PDF. I do transcribe basic names dates and places where necessary but keep those to a minimum.

[ColeValleyGirl]

In this case I would share the image as well as the PDF

..and hope the people receiving it could understand Legal Latin from the 1660s?

[NickWalker]

Thinking Out Of The Box

The video discusses the recording of sources citations and facts by typing on the keyboard, as if that is the only possible method. There is an alternative, not often discussed.

In this digital world data storage is without limit and cheap. I simply download or scan or photograph the original sources and link those images to the people concerned. Have extensive browser bookmarks linking to multiple datasets. Make good use of descriptive folders and filenames. Keep multiple digital copies of those images saved in multiple locations, both physical and virtual. I am in control of my sources, even when the location of where those sources were found changes. An example was when Wales parish register images moved from Findmypast to Ancestry.

As the images are my sources, I have no need to transcribe them, resulting in a massive decrease in keyboard time, and more time to research. If images are available I don't copy online transcriptions because they are frequently incomplete and inaccurate.

Hi Trevor

I always link an image of the source too and this is very clearly shown in my Introduction to Ancestral Sources video (in the Ancestral Sources YouTube Channel). The 'All about Sources' video was an attempt to try to explain the jargon (citations/sources, lumper/splitter, generic/templated, rich-text/plain text) rather than be a detailed guide to how to record sources. At various points in the video though I do mention that images/media can be attached to the source.

As Helen has illustrated so well, the reason that I like to have a text transcription is because I can read it really quickly. If all I had was, for example, was a very readable/legible image of a census page it will still take me at least 20 or 30 secs (estimated) to display that image, scroll down to find the relevant family, zoom in/out to read it and probably have to squint a bit to see what it says compared to this being almost instant with a transcription.

I think that the AS auto-text feature does make this transcription process much quicker but I do agree though that recording transcriptions is time-consuming and I totally respect anyone's decision not to use their valuable time in doing this.

[tatewise]

If I recall correctly, Trevor does not use Source Citations at all but attaches Media directly to Individual records or Facts.
I apologize if I am mistaken.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Nick, IIRC, Trevor doesn't use Source record or citations at all.

[NickWalker]

Yes and Trevor said this in his post, I just wanted to make it clear that I agree with him that it is a good idea to link an image and that I do this too, but also to explain why I also record a transcript.

[trevorrix]

Yes, I attach source images to the people concerned.

Census via AS method 2 - by ticking "Link images to individuals" kindly provided by Nick.

Or via the Individual Property Box > Media tab > Add Media.