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Reference 644
Title Allow Report sentences to recognise Individuals who are Living
Category Reports
Description Problem Statement
Narrative reports refer to all individuals in the past tense. When an individual is still
living this is inappropriate in many contexts. The user can override the default sentences for some
facts in individual cases (for example “from 2010 he was a teacher” could be edited to become
("since 2010 he has been a teacher”). However there are two types of sentence which are not under
the user’s control. These are:

1. When individual’s parents are known but there are no other facts recorded about the person
FH generates a sentence in the format "Joe Bloggs was the son of Fred Bloggs and Mary Smith",
in the past tense. (If any fact has been recorded about the person the words “was the” are removed
from “was the son of ...” and the narrative reads “Joe Bloggs, son of Fred Blogs and Mary Smith,
was …” where the past tense may be appropriate if the first fact is an event such as birth or baptism.)

2. When an individual’s or couple’s children are listed, FH generates a sentence in the format
“Fred Bloggs and Mary Smith had the following children”. If the parents are both still alive this
is slightly odd, but the preferred wording will depend on whether all the children are still alive.
The user may also prefer the wording to be changed if any of the children were adopted by the named parents.

The first problem might be solved by including a Report Option to use the present tense if the
Living flag is set on the individual. However the second problem is more complex.

Proposal
The format of these two types of sentence should be customisable in a similar way to
most other narrative sentences, to allow the user choose the exact wording.

This would also provide a solution to the problem raised in another Wish List request 366
Number of children to be reflected in Narrative Reports which asks for the word “child”
to be used instead of “children” when a couple had/have only one child.
Web Link https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23356
Votes 6
Rating 3.2
Added Tuesday 22nd October 2024
Last Vote Tuesday 22nd October 2024

 

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