* Replacing Pre-Existing Facts as part of RE-DO using AS

[Gary_G]

I'm hoping to use AS as a way to replace the pre-exiting facts of an imported database.
(The database has already been purged of all sources and repositories, but the Individuals+Facts and the Places remain).

I'd like to flag the pre-existing facts, so I can see which are left to do, or possibly just be removed at some point.
However; I want to make sure that my choice of flagging doesn't prevent AS from seeing them, so it can remove/overwrite them.

This can't be a new scenario, so perhaps there is a "tried and true" process to do this type of REDO using AS?
I'm open to suggestions.

[LornaCraig]

Why not just experiment to find out?
I've just experimented by adding a Tentative flag to a fact in the FH Sample Project. AS can see the fact and offers to replace it (without the flag).

[Gary_G]

Lorna;

I didn't try to experiment extensively with AS regarding this, because there are SO many switches in AS that seem like they could affect what happens.
You, on the other hand, are quite familiar with how AS works. So; you know when the setup of AS could affect the behaviour.

[LornaCraig]

So; you know when the setup of AS could affect the behaviour.

I can't think why any settings within AS would affect its ability to detect an existing fact in FH. And if AS took any notice of fact flags in FH I'm sure it would say so in the AS Help files. However if you want a definitive answer you'll need to wait to hear from Nick!

[NickWalker]

If you're using a fact flag then I believe it will disappear when the fact is replaced.

[LornaCraig]

Yes, it did when I experimented. "...AS can see the fact and offers to replace it (without the flag)". I think Gary's question was whether the flag would somehow prevent AS seeing that the fact was there. He wants AS to replace the fact, not end up with both the old (flagged) fact and the new (AS-created) fact.

[NickWalker]

No it won't prevent it being seen!

[Gary_G]

Nick and Lorna;

I think you both understood what I was trying to do and have answered my question. Thank you.

I am planning to flag all the existing facts and let AS replace them as I work through the process of re-entering my records. Based on what you both have said; AS always sees records no matter whether they are flagged or not and the act of replacing a records also deletes the flag. So; when I think I'm done entering data, I'll check to see if any flagged facts remain. Any remaining ones would indicate that I either need to find the missing fact record and enter it, or the fact may have been irrelevant or entered in error and should be removed. Hopefully; using AS will result in re-entering all the facts I have and then some; in which case there will be no flags left.

[tatewise]

Gary, just remember that AS is unlikely to be able to replace all your Facts because AS only focuses on Birth, Baptism, Census, Marriage, Death & Burial source records. So any other Facts such as Education, Military Service, Will, Probate, Residence, Adoption, Divorce, Emigration, Immigration, etc, will still retain their flags.

[arthurk]

I don't claim to be an expert, but I did migrate from RM (v.6) to FH about 6 years ago. My feeling at that time was that I should get to grips with FH on its own terms first, before considering whether AS would be of benefit. And I still haven't used AS.

Like you, I used 'lumped' sources in RM - mine were typically rather minimalist, and the citations had no transcriptions or images. Eventually I decided this needed to change, particularly for censuses, the main driver being the support for formatted text and tables in Text from Source that was introduced in FH v.7. At this point it also made sense to switch to 'split' sources; the Lumped Source Splitter plug-in was invaluable here, and I'm steadily working through the process of adding transcripts and sources. For the transcripts I've devised my own versions of auto-text to use instead of the FH-provided ones.

I appreciate your research is largely in a different country, so what I did may not work for you, but on reading this thread about flags, I think I can see a problem with this approach. Say, for example, you have a fact that is supported by more than one source: if you enter the first source via AS and replace the pre-existing fact with its flag, you'll no longer have a flagged fact to use for checking that subsequent sources have been added correctly. So at that point the process breaks down - or have I misunderstood what you're thinking of doing?

[tatewise]

arthurk, I think you make a valid point. Birth events in particular often cite Birth/Baptism documents, Census records, &/or Death records that state birth dates. So the first source that gets captured via AS will clear the flag and the others may get overlooked.

[Gary_G]

The Source Splitter plug-in was the first thing I tried, but it didn't quite do what I needed. As I became a bit more familiar with how FH7 was intended to work, I decided to re-enter my data from scratch, and do so as a Splitter, in order to take advantage of more features. After I posted about flags in this thread, I came to the conclusion that the flag option wouldn't work. As I said in another thread; "A plan seldom survives first contact with the enemy".

I have prepared a "REDO" project that contains the facts/events (and some supporting data), but no sources. For simplicity; I've also removed residence and occupation facts as all my imported ones came from records that AS can use to automatically regenerate them. All my sources are stored as images in an external directory on my computer and have matching records in RM9. As I finish entering a source image into AS by copying info from my the associated record of old RM9 database running on a second screen, I'll flag it in the image directory as being done. To see my status, I can look at my image directory to see the processed images and also do a query on FH7 to see what facts/events don't yet have sources. Eventually; I will get all my source images entered. At that point there will be some facts/events that still have no sources. Those remaining facts/events are essentially "tentative", if I want to flag them as such.

[tatewise]

A similar technique could be achieved in a slightly different way.
Copy all your Media files into the FH Project Media folder/subfolders.
As you add each Source, link the Media files that are already within the FH Media folder.
Then use the Check for Unlinked Media plugin to list all Media not yet linked to the Project.

[Gary_G]

A similar technique could be achieved in a slightly different way.
Copy all your Media files into the FH Project Media folder/subfolders.
As you add each Source, link the Media files that are already within the FH Media folder.
Then use the Check for Unlinked Media plugin to list all Media not yet linked to the Project.

Mike;
I tried what you suggested and it looks very promising. Thank you. One bonus is that I can do a bit of media management on my files even before attaching them to a citation. This is so much better than my old program. So far, I've been able to get rid of some of my auxiliary notes files and just put that data in the FH7 notes section for the image. I suppose this will be an evolutionary process; the more I do, the more possibilities I see.

I did notice one odd thing upon import. If the image was scanned, FH7 seemed to use my embedded scanner name as the title and the embedded scan date in the date field. FH7 must be looking "inside" a file in certain cases. That's not a problem; just something unexpected and easily fixed from within FH7. I wish I knew the whole set of fields FH7 checks, so that in future I could have my scanner software populate them up front.

[LornaCraig]

I did notice one odd thing upon import. If the image was scanned, FH7 seemed to use my embedded scanner name as the title and the embedded scan date in the date field. FH7 must be looking "inside" a file in certain cases. That's not a problem; just something unexpected and easily fixed from within FH7. I wish I knew the whole set of fields FH7 checks, so that in future I could have my scanner software populate them up front.

This topic is relevant: Question on image metadata - date + keywords (21497)

[Gary_G]

Thanks, Lorna.

I read over the article. Quite the thread...

I've been a member of the "ControlledVocabulary" group for many years, so most of the discussion regarding keywords and the IPTC standard was pretty familiar. It's curious that the difference between how Macs and Windows use image metadata never came up in the noted thread (that I could see). The "ControlledVocabulary" group had scads of posts on that, since trying to find some common set of IPTC metadata that both Macs and Windows file-managers used was the "Holy Grail" for quite a while. Trying to add the constraint of having FH7 recognize a certain set would seem to complicate things even more.

All said and done, though; it sounds as if one pretty-much has to try a few test files in FH7 and see what's recognized. For now; I'll put that test on hold, as I've managed to get things looking fairly reasonable in the media gallery of FH7. Although, it would be interesting to see what (if anything) FH7 writes back to a file during renaming. Somehow, I suspect it's not a lot.