* No-text notes

[ACGenea]

Hello again,

I'm still learning how to use FH and now I come across empty (no-text) notes with individuals.

no-text-note.jpg (56.92 KiB) Viewed 550 times

Is there a way to delete these notes?
I can't find them in the notes-tab in the records window, in fact there are no notes there. I was hoping to find all (individual and marriage) notes.

records-notes.jpg (82.89 KiB) Viewed 550 times

I've read about deleting multiple records, but since I can't find them in the records window I don't know how to access them.

Thanks for helping me,
Arjanne

[ColeValleyGirl]

Those notes as 'Local notes' (as per the type column), i.e. notes associated only with the Individual or Family concerned and not capable of being shared with other records, so they are not visible in the Notes tab in the Records window (whoich showed Shared -- or shareable -- Notes).

To delete one, select it in the Notes tab of the property box and click the red X delete button at the bottom of the list of notes (or right click on the note and click the delete icon in the pop-up menu).

If you have many of them, it's possible to run a query and delete them in bulk from the query Result Set. Ask if you want help constructing the query. The local note field code is

Code: Select all

%INDI.NOTE2[1]%

.

I'm assuming these empty notes appeared when you imported your data from Legacy? Have you been pointed to this advice yet: Importing to Family Historian, some of which may be relevant even though I assume you imported directly and not via a Gedcom.

[tatewise]

Hi Arjanne.

First, it is necessary to understand the difference between shared Note records and local Note fields.
Note records are listed in the Records Window on the Notes tab and have the yellow folder icon. They may be linked to several records in the same way that Source and Media records can be linked to several records.
Local Note fields are local to the current record (so cannot be shared). They have a blue or red bullet icon if local to the Individual or Family record (just like Individual and Family facts have a blue or red bullet). They have a 23 calendar icon if local to a fact.

Any Note may contain plain text or in FH V7 may also contain formatted rich text. This is important to understand.

If all the plain text in a local Note is deleted then an empty local Note field remains but is automatically deleted when FH is closed and re-opened.

However, if all the content of a formatted rich text local Note is deleted then the empty Note field remains. If it is attached to the Individual or Family record then it is shown on the Notes tab as <No text>.
There are several ways to permanently delete such empty rich text local Note fields:

• In the Property Box Notes tab, right-click the <No text> Note and choose X Unlink/Delete Note.
• Open the All tab, scroll towards the bottom of the pane, select the Note item and press the Delete key.

[posted at same time as Helen]

[ACGenea]

Thank you both for your replies.
If I understand correctly there is no easy way to delete all empty local notes. I would like to make a query, but I don't know (yet) how to make a query, especially a query for an empty note-field. If you could help me create a query would be great.

I have imported a Legacy file and have seen the info about importing a Legacy file but that was mainly for importing via GEDCOM. I couldn't find information about this empty note thing.

I really like FH by the way. But there are some things I need to do to have a nice clean database. I've started genealogy in the early 90's with a ms-dos based program called Pro-Gen, then I started to use Legacy because that works with Windows and have been using it for many years. I would like to use this move to FH to clean up my database, because over the years things have become a bit cluttered.

Kind regards,
Arjanne

[tatewise]

Arjanne, start with the FHUG Knowledge Base > An Overview of Queries in particular Creating a Custom Query and create a custom Query of Individual type similar to that shown in the video tutorial.

Having successfully done that we can explain how to adapt it to find and delete <No text> record Notes in bulk.

[ACGenea]

Thank you, I will give it a try.

Arjanne

[ACGenea]

I didn't realize that the note shown in the main tab in the property box is also shown in the notes tab. I have deleted notes in the main tab, so in the notes tab the empty note remains. After closing FH those empty notes are deleted as you said. So the problem is solved.

Thank you for your help!