* Source Citation: Text from Source vs. Notes

[BevSmallwood]

I frequently transcribe the source details. Do I put that in "Text from Source" or "Notes".

I don't understand why there are two such similar things and when to use one over the other.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Text from Source is what the Source says (to whatever degree you want to transcribe it).

Notes are what you think about the source: "This is a crock of something smelly and I don't trust it"; "I can't read most of this"; "the transcriber was clearly inhaling something whacky"; "This is perfect and wonderful and the last word on the subject...'". Or your genuine opinion. Can also include facts about the source...

[AdrianBruce]

I also use Notes to explain why I think that this John Smith in the source, born London, is my John Smith of London.... You can put that sort of stuff elsewhere and link it but putting it in the Note is a starting point that gets me a long way.

[Gowermick]

Bev,
I agree with ColeValleyGirl, but don’t get hung up on ‘doing the right thing’.

At the end of the day, a source is merely the evidence you used to arrive at a particular conclusion.

I.e. Q Why did you think he was baptised at a certain place at a certain time.
A from the parish register image of the certain place, for the certain time.

You need to do this so that in future, if you doubt the conclusion you arrived at, you can revisit the source to double check.
I’ve seem too many on-line trees that state one thing then quote a source that says something completely different

As long as your source achieves this, it really doesn’t matter whether you use Notes or Text From Source. Remember, it is your data, and you can do whatever takes your fancy. There are no hard and fast rules, nor right and wrong way of doing things.

NB The exception to this is the rule that shouldn’t add anything without noting where you got the information i.e your source, even if its simply ‘Fred told me’

[ColeValleyGirl]

I also use Notes to explain why I think that this John Smith in the source, born London, is my John Smith of London.... You can put that sort of stuff elsewhere and link it but putting it in the Note is a starting point that gets me a long way.

I put that in the Fact Note, because I may end up having to explain discrepancies between sources and why I ended up trusting one more than another.

But there is no one true path! We should perhaps add that as a disclaimer to every post here

[BevSmallwood]

I guess my concern was that one of them appears elsewhere in this way or that one can be queried in this way.

I like the first one text=transcription and notes being for analysis.

Can I utilize the notes in some way to leverage them or print them elsewhere?

[davidf]

Can I utilize the notes in some way to leverage them or print them elsewhere?

If you have not come across the GetLabelledText fucntion, have a look at
https://www.family-historian.co.uk/help ... dtext.html

Examples:

=GetLabelledText(%INDI.BIRT.NOTE2%,"Confirmed:")

This example will return all text following the label ‘Confirmed:’ in the specified long text field.

[tatewise]

I'm not sure I understand your questions, but both Text From Source and Note fields have the same capabilities.
They can both be edited in rich text mode, queried, printed, etc, as desired.
As far as FH is concerned those two fields have identical attributes except for their name and data reference.
The GetLabelledText(...) function mentioned by David can be applied to both fields.

[BevSmallwood]

Cool. Thanks Mike.