* Narrative Reports Anomaly

[NickiP]

I've come across a bit of an anomaly with the Ancestors by Generation and Individual Narrative Reports where there are no marriage details for an individual who married more than once.

When I run the Individual Narrative Report it states she married twice and who she married, but the Local Note I have entered for her second husband appears underneath the children details from her first marriage.

fh6 individual report.JPG (54.12 KiB) Viewed 6295 times

When I run the Ancestors by Generation Narrative Report where this ancestor and her first husband are my direct ancestors, there is no mention of the second husband but the Local Note for him appears underneath her details as if it applies to her.

fh6 ancestor's report issue.JPG (28.99 KiB) Viewed 6295 times

Normally of course, where the marriage details are entered, the additional spouse details would appear in this report type beneath her details and the Local Note would appear against the additional spouse correctly.

Obviously the issue is caused by the fact that I've yet to find either marriage, but it seems strange it is behaving this way. I'm more concerned with the way it shows in the Ancestors by Generation Narrative Report as I don't run many Individual Narrative Reports but am including it to show how the anomaly varies from Report to Report.

Any ideas on how this could be resolved please? I really don't want to have to enter an approximate date in the marriage field to resolve it. Having to do that was one of the reasons I stopped using FTM.

Nicola

[tatewise]

I have performed some experiments with FH V5 and FH V6 with the same results.
[If you have read my earlier postings then ignore what I said - I was labouring under a misunderstanding.]
I now realise that the local Note is attached to the Individual record of the 2nd husband Henry GRAY.

My impression is that it appears in a similar position in both reports, after the 1st marriage/children details.
(Where else should 2nd marriage details be included.)

The reason it appears out of context is that Henry GRAY has absolutely no facts.
Simply add any fact for him: Birth, Marriage, Death, Occupation, anything you know.
e.g. Occupation Fishmonger/Fisherman and cite the two certificate Sources.
It does not have to have any details, but an approximate Date or a Place name would help.
Then his Note will make much more sense.

BTW: If you are not sure Henry actually married Ann then set their Marriage Status to Unknown so the report says they had a relationship rather than married, but remember to reset it if you find a Marriage record.

Regarding Non-Ancestral Spouse details, there are Report Options to enable those.

[NickiP]

Hi Mike

Yes I did read your earlier post but didn't get a chance to respond to it.

I had also been having a play around prior to reading your updated post and realised also the issue is the fact there aren't any facts against Henry Gray, found the same with a couple of other ancestors and their other spouses too. Where there is a birth/baptism and/or death/burial, then the non-ancestral spouse shows up on the Ancestors by Generation Report, where there isn't they don't.

Changing the marital status to Unknown or Never Married doesn't help because it still doesn't show up on the Ancestors by Generation Report, although obviously it does on the Individual Narrative for Ann herself.

Its a shame that changing the marital status to Unknown doesn't add the "had a relationship with" sentence to the Ancestors by Generation Report when the second spouse is obviously not the direct ancestor. I have the Report Options for Non-Ancestral Spouses ticked by default anyway. While adding a profession to Henry Gray allows him to show up in the Report, with the marital status not showing even when set to Unknown and no approximate marriage date available, its a bit disjointed as to why he is there. OK for me as I know why, but if I was to send the report to a relative, I'd probably have to add something, even a local note to Ann, explaining this.

Nicola

[tatewise]

Hi Nicola, my Narrative Ancestors by Generation report always mentions a 2nd non-ancestral husband, either saying "X married Y." or "X had a relationship with Y." so I cannot reproduce your second illustrated report where Henry is not mentioned at all.

That 2nd husband is mentioned even if I untick all Report Options except Auto-Generate Sentences if Missing Facts.
Have you by any chance unticked that Auto-Generate... option?

[NickiP]

Thanks Mike, yes I'd unticked the Auto-Generate option on the Ancestors Report. However, this was because it had previously added "has few details recorded" to individuals I'd not got birth/baptism or death/burial, even if a marriage fact was included. The latter is probably a minority and I could probably get around it by adding a death fact of them dying after their last child's birth/baptism year. This should then remove the auto-generated sentence.

Nicola

Edit - the workaround is OK when you have a birth/baptism date for a child, but I have a couple of Huguenot ancestors whose parent's are listed on their marriage in the UK but for whom I don't know the birth/baptism date and while for the father it states they married the mother, for the mother it auto-generates the sentence "few details recorded" even though it then says they had the following children. You would have hoped that the family fact would have avoided the "few details recorded" sentence in these circumstances.

[tatewise]

Nicola, perhaps that is a little inconsistent. Maybe drop an Email to Calico Pie.
But it is reasonable narrative to say she "has few details recorded" after her marriage has been mentioned on the line above.
However, it seems the mystery of the unmentioned 2nd husband has been resolved to your satisfaction.

[NickiP]

Yes the second husband issue is now resolved OK, just the anomalies with the auto-generate sentences which are a bit annoying.

Mind you, I know I posted another reply just after my previous one and its disappeared. Definitely clicked the post button because I then returned to the thread to check it was there.

[tatewise]

Sometimes I notice that if I Submit a post but another post got in first, then I have to Submit again.

[NickiP]

Just a thought, but is there any way of changing the auto-generate sentence please so that rather than saying "has few details recorded", it could say something like "little is known about them" (or something similar) as that would better reflect the actual situation? The auto-sentence as it stands almost suggests that information is available but hasn't been recorded yet, which isn't necessarily the case when records are missing and, eg. the only reference is the fact they married.

[tatewise]

I don't think the text of the auto-generated sentence can be changed, but maybe try adding a custom Fact whose Sentence says what you want.

[NickiP]

Thanks Mike, thought that might be the case. I'll have a look at creating a custom fact.