* Birth Reg Fact to Birth Fact

[alanRiddles]

When I transferred by data from TMG to Family Historian all my Birth Reg facts stayed as Birth Reg facts. (The same for marriage and death). Is there a way of displaying these facts in the Focus window or anywhere else that these Facts would be displayed where there is no other Birth Fact for example.

[davidm_uk]

Could you use the Change Any Fact Tag plugin to change those to regular Birth Facts? Maybe experiment of a copy of your project to see the results.
http://www.family-historian.co.uk/plugi ... try?id=172

[alanRiddles]

I did think of that. Perhaps I just needed a jog as I forgot that if I have two Birth Facts I can change the order of them and I guess that will solve any duplicate problems. Thanks

[tatewise]

There are a number of ways of looking at this from various perspectives.

I assume the Birth Reg fact records the Place and Date the Informant registered the birth.

If you have a Birth Reg fact then you must know they were born and a good idea of where and when.
So why not add a Birth Event with Place and Date Range for each person?

There are many consequences if you do not have a Birth Event (or at least Baptism/Christening Event) for a person. Their Age cannot be estimated for any other fact, and so validity checks for Marriage and Child birth and Death/Burial dates are impossible. Also some Plugins can help search for missing BMD/Census records, but those searches are less efficient without a Date of Birth.

The Change Any Fact Tag Plugin does not have to change every Birth Reg fact to a Birth Event but selecting which ones could be tedious.

If you do use that Plugin and result in duplicate Birth Events then their order is determined by their Dates.

[alanRiddles]

You are obviously correct saying that if you get duplicate Birth Events then their order is determined by their Dates and if I have just a circa. year e.g. c.1863 it would come before Mar 1863.
How would I add a Birth Event with Place and Date Range for each person with a Birth Reg or indeed move the Birth Reg date to Birth Event.

[tatewise]

I was thinking you would add each Birth Event manually by using the Add Fact button and enter the Place and Date, which I assumed would be different from the Birth Reg details.

Maybe I have misunderstood what your Birth Reg facts represent.
Obviously you know their purpose, but I am in the dark.
Please explain your concepts for recording the Birth Event and Birth Reg facts.

[alanRiddles]

I have collected ALL births marriages and deaths for my surname totalling several thousand so individually changing them would be a massive task.
I guess what I really want is to change Birth Reg to Birth if there is no other date in Birth field or replace date if only year with no prefix is present.
I have also realised that with more than one birth date some are labelled birth[2]* [3]* etc so I would need to move any full date e.g. day month year to birth.
See attachment.
I think I am trying to do too much

[tatewise]

I suspect there are too many conditions and exceptions for any automated solution.

The Change Any Fact Tag Plugin does allow its effect to be restricted to a Pick list of Individual records. So if you can identify whose Birth Reg facts need changing to Birth Events then that would simply convert one to the other, but it cannot rearrange a collection of Birth Reg and Birth Event facts and conditionally moved Date values around.

I wonder why you have collected so many records for your surname.
Are you developing a one name study?
If you are only researching your family tree, then it is an unconventional approach.
Usually you start with your immediate family and work back from there, only recording proven relatives.

[alanRiddles]

I started in 1993 and at the first Family History Show in London it was suggested that I collect all references to my surname and not pass them by. I guess they were perhaps thinking in Sussex where my oldest ancestor lived and it grew from there.
It obviously became a bit of a One Name Study but I have back pedalled a bit although it seems a shame not to keep up to date what I have.
Perhaps I will have a chat to Simon Orde at the next show in Birmingham as I do realise that there is not a one stop fix.
Many thanks for your suggestions and comments.

[brianlummis]

As an ex TMG user I think that I understand your dilemma. I have been gradually tidying up my data for the past two years, and that was with an import of 3,000 names, and I am nowhere near finishing!

One thing that helped me was to realise that FH works on different principles to TMG, and the best answer was to try to adopt those practices rather than trying to get things looking the same. Relating to your problem, I soon discovered that rather than having several birth facts (or tags) it was better to have just one fact as a person can only be born once. Then all supporting evidence for that birth could be recorded using sources and citations.

In TMG it was common to record the birth with varying dates particularly from census data which are notoriously inaccurate. Now, once I have a date that is either certain, such as from a birth certificate, or within a definite period such as the quarter of birth registration (with the proviso that this may not be totally correct), I then ignore all other dates from less reliable sources. Looking at the extract you provided, I would guess that the Born c. 1893 would fall into that category and could be deleted as it serves no good purpose.

This then raises the question of how many multiple Born Facts that you have in your data. It may be that these are a manageable number to examine manually and they could be combined if you are prepared to accept that there should be only one birth fact. This would remove what I think is the obstacle to an automated method of getting your Birth Reg Facts combined with your Birth Facts. If you have only one Birth Fact per Individual then I guess it would be possible to extract the data from the Birth Reg Fact, combine it with the Birth Fact and by comparing the Quarter Date with the Birth Fact Date decide which is the most appropriate.

I am sure that Mike will tell me if I am barking up the wrong tree!

Brian

[tatewise]

In principal you are correct Brian, and the advice about a single Birth Event is good.
The same goes for Marriage Events and Death Events that Alan also mentions

However, the only automated solution would require a custom Plugin.
But to create that requires an in depth understanding of all the various Birth Events, Birth Reg facts and their Place & Date & Citation details, etc.
Then a set of rules about how to merge those all into one Birth Event need to be devised.
That would need repeating for Marriage and Death.

I suspect the time and risks involved may be too extensive and a manual strategy applied over a period of time may be more satisfactory. Many users who migrate into FH take the opportunity to review their research records, and often find that very beneficial, because they question the database and use the latest online records to establish better details.

[alanRiddles]

I've just remembered a suggestion by John Hanson at a SOG talk about Family Historian and tried it. It takes a bit of time but works.
Select secondary birth date and if it is a detail you want to keep,
Copy the Citation for that secondary date.
Select main date and paste the copied citation.
Then delete second date and of course any other estimated dates e.g. from Census.
It works but will take a bit of time.