* Copying Fact Types

[tithepit2022]

To start at the beginning I wanted to tighten up my issues with duplicated facts and discovered that where an individual has both a public and private baptism I've inadvertently created such a duplicate. So the obvious answer seemed to me to be to create an additional Fact Type for the Private Baptism Event in the Custom Fact set and let the default Baptism Event in the Standard Fact set be interpreted as the far more common Public Baptism.

I copied the default Baptism Event from the Standard Fact set to the Custom Fact Set but this then rendered the original Fact Type "eclipsed" and "disabled" (as I found after I turned on the "Show hidden" button. There does not appear then to be anyway to restore the original Fact Type because, while I can change the Label on the new Fact Type, I cannot change the Fact Type Name - which is of course now a duplicate of the new Fact Type. So in effect the "Copy Event Type" option is in reality a "Replace Event Type" that enables a customised version of an existing Fact Type to be be used in place of the original.

I found that the way around this problem with creating additional Fact Types is to create a new Private Baptism Fact Type manually, when I can create a new Fact Type Name that is then used as the default Label (which can subsequently be edited as above). But not only do I have to create the Fact Type sentence template manually, I also have to create those for the witnesses. OK this is not that difficult but it does seem an unnecessary hassle.

Would it not be easier for FH to allow me, when copying an Fact Type, to provide an alternative Fact Type Name (that is then used as the default Label) at that stage and so avoid the issues above? Then the new Fact Type would not conflict with the original and could be immediately used with no further editing, knowing that it already contained the same sentence templates as the original. If in fact I did want to replace the Standard Fact Type with my own custom version, then I could still use the same Name as the original and get the equivalent result to what happens now.

Or am I missing something in my understanding of how all this works?

[ColeValleyGirl]

Some useful background at Private baptism in one church followed by baptism in another? (plus answers).

[AdrianBruce]

I know that I once wanted to clone Fact Type A (say) to produce a similar but not identical Fact Type A-Dash and I got bored copying everything - narrative sentences, witness sentences and and and... I think I did contemplate editing the relevant files but quickly came to the conclusion that I'd spend far more time understanding how the bits of files held together than I would save by cloning and editing. To say nothing of the risk of getting it wrong if I misunderstood.

[Mark1834]

It could be addressed with a plugin if any aspiring authors want to use it as an example to understand the structure of fact set files (as I did with the Change Specific Fact Tag plugin a couple of years ago), but whether it is worth the effort is debatable.

It feels more like a potential wish list entry if anyone out there is sufficiently motivated to champion it…

[tatewise]

To answer one of Richard's original questions ~ you can restore the Standard Baptism fact by deleting the copy in the Custom fact set. The standard version will then no longer be eclipsed. Another technique is to use the Fact Sets... button and move the Standard fact set above the Custom fact set so the Standard Baptism eclipses the Custom Baptism, but this is not the best option.

Instead of creating a separate fact, I suggest you use the fact Type descriptor to differentiate Public from Private Baptisms.
See FHUG Knowledge Base > Recording a Civil Partnership for that option of the Marriage fact under Fact Type Descriptor.
Key events such as Birth, Baptism, Christening, Marriage, Death, Burial & Cremation play important roles in FH functions.
For example, estimated Birth/Death dates can use any of those events when actual Birth or Death dates are not recorded.
Those events also appear in the Focus Window when necessary.
Whereas, a custom Private Baptism event will be ignored by FH in all such functions.

If any of this Type descriptor option is not clear then ask again.

[tithepit2022]

My apologies for not responding earlier to the helpful responses posted by community - while my notifications settings appear to be correct, my default posting options were not, so I was not aware that anyone had responded (and I've been busy in the garden!). I've now fixed that so hopefully should be more responsive to replies in future.

I should have made it clear that I'd already got around the issue of the new custom Fact Type eclipsing the old standard one by simply removing the new custom Fact Type - but thanks to Mike for spelling this out so that other falling into the same trap know the way out! Thanks in particular also to Helen for linking that very comprehensive article on the whole topic of Private Baptisms in the Stack Exchange blog. I'd no idea that there was a genealogy blog on Stack Exchange in the first place (although I have used it many times in the past for WordPress queries!).

Finally thanks to Mike again for pointing out that (as I suspected) I had not grasped the full significance of using Custom Fact Type for such an important event as a baptism. I shall have a go at understanding how to use the Fact type Descriptor, which I'd not come across in my many years of using FH, and come back if I get stuck in the implementation.

[tithepit2022]

It has taken me a while to work out how to adapt the syntax of the changes suggested in the post on Civil Unions for my requirement to handle Private Baptisms. For the benefit of others who wish to adopt this approach, the procedure is to start by duplicating the Baptism event for the individual concerned and enter details for the Private Baptism to one and for the Public Baptism to the other. Then insert the Fact Descriptor - by right clicking the Private Baptism event in the All TAB for the Individual and choosing the entry "Descriptor" (the first additional field in the list) and inserting the text "Privately " to the field.

Next insert the code to override the default Baptism Sentence Template via Tools > Fact Types > Baptism > Edit > Sentence Template in the main window to use the wording in place of the single word "baptised":

"{individual} was {=CombineText( %FACT.TYPE%, "baptised" )} {date} {place} {age}."

to produce the example result "He was Privately baptised on 27 October 1881, in Easton, Hampshire."

Then on the Advanced screen tick the box labelled "Summary Template (e.g. for Facts tab Listings)" and insert in the field beneath:

"{=CombineText(%FACT.TYPE%, "Baptised" )}"

to produce the result "27 October 1881 Privately Baptised" in the Record Details window

Finally on the Advanced screen also tick the box labelled "Override Template for Records Window Listings" and insert in the field beneath:

"{=CombineText(%FACT.TYPE%, "Baptised" )} {date} {place} {age}"

to produce the result in the Records Window "Privately Baptised on 27 October 1881, in Easton, Hampshire."

Note that inserting the extra space at the end of the Descriptor value (viz. "Privately ") was the only way I could find to handle the output for both ordinary public and private baptisms correctly. Perhaps there is a clever way of putting a conditional around the Descriptor field in the Templates to improve this, so the text could read just "Privately" and still the required space before the word "baptised" or "Baptism" only appears where it should?

Also, I'm not clear how to remove the "Descriptor" if it has been added by mistake - other than editing the GEDCOM file by hand - otherwise the unwanted field remains even when empty.

I did not try the alternative suggestion of using the Notes field in the post on Civil Unions because I'd already used that to refer to the nature of the baptism being private etc.

But now of course I'm back to the original problem of having apparently duplicated Baptism events! Perhaps the Statistics Plugin could be adapted to allow for the above situation and exclude duplicates that have different Descriptors?

[tatewise]

With the space in the Descriptor, you don't need to use =CombineText(...)
%FACT.TYPE%baptised will work OK.

To add the space only when the Descriptor exists is where =CombineText(...) is a solution.
{=CombineText( "", %FACT.TYPE%, " " )}baptised
i.e. Conditionally add a space suffix only if %FACT.TYPE% exists.

To delete an empty Descriptor, use the All tab and select the word Descriptor then hit the Delete key.
BTW: Closing and opening FH should also remove the empty Descriptor (TYPE) field.

The Show Project Statistics plugin highlights 'abnormal' data but they are not necessarily errors.
Once you have reviewed a class of reports they can be inhibited on the Options tab, i.e. untick Duplicated BMD event.
I will look into taking the Descriptor (TYPE) field into account in a future version of the plugin.

[tithepit2022]

Brilliant thanks - now I know what those curly brackets are for!

For the record the resulting syntax for three sets of template entries are in full:

{individual} was {=CombineText( "", %FACT.TYPE%, " " )}baptised {date} {place} {age}.

{=CombineText("", %FACT.TYPE%, " ")}Baptised

{=CombineText("", %FACT.TYPE%, " ")}Baptised {date} {place} {age}

I always forget that in some places with FH one just has to use the Delete key - I only ever try right clicking!

Thanks also for offering to revisit the Project Statistics plugin in due course.

[tatewise]

The { curly brackets } are only needed to identify functions in Templates where { codes } apply.

An alternative to hitting the Delete key is the Edit > X Delete command.