* Newspapers fact

[janefrances]

I've created a custom fact for Newspaper as I have a number of funeral reports and other articles to attach to FH. When I looked at the sentence underneath the property box it says 'he experienced newspaper on 7 March 1864 in the Standard' I know I can override the default sentences but as I have several of them is this the only way to get what I want?

Another option I thought about was to attach the newspaper sources to the Main Name tab on the property box instead as I have never really got to grips with the fact sentence templates. Many Thanks

[LornaCraig]

To change the template to make more sense, use Tools>Fact Types and select the Newspaper fact from the list. Click the Edit button and change the sentence template to something like {individual} was mentioned in a newspaper report {date} {place}

However this would still be a bit odd in the case of an obituary or a funeral report so you would probably still want to edit the sentence in the Property box in some cases.

Rather than have a custom newspaper fact I create a Source record for each newspaper report (with the Source type 'newspaper'). I attach images of the relevant newspaper report to the Source and usually put a transcription in the Text field of the Source record. Then I cite the Source against whatever fact is most appropriate. For example an obituary can be cited for the death and sometimes also for an occupation or residence, depending on the content of the obituary. A funeral report can be cited for a death or a burial/cremation.

[BobWard]

. . . as I have never really got to grips with the fact sentence templates. Many Thanks

When I first got FH a few years, I was also very frustrated with the "sentence template" approach to generating reports. I quickly learned to adopt the Individual Summary Report (ISR) option and use the Note boxes to manually write all the text that I wanted to attach to every Standard or Custom Fact. That approach gave me complete control over sentence structure and grammar.

As far as newspaper articles, or any other media items, I do as Lorna suggests, I simply attach them as Source records to the associated Fact. Then the Note box for the Fact gives a complete background story (that I write, as opposed to the software writing) for the attached Source record, and the Source record appears in the ISR as a jpeg image.

The ISR format provides a very well organized output for each individual, and, it tells the complete story of the person's life in my words. When I generate a genealogy report for any branch of the family tree, it consists of a series of ISRs for all the people in that branch of the tree.

Works very well for my needs, but I realize that everyone has different needs and preferences for their reports.

[janefrances]

Many thanks for your responses, I think I'll attach the sources to the standard fact sets as Lorna suggests.

Never thought of doing that Bob. I'll have to look at the ISR and try that.

[BobWard]

Jane, one of the focal points of my ISR profiles is the "Biography" attribute. This is a Custom attribute that I created within FH. So, anytime that I want to write a biography on someone's life, I just open the "Add Fact" tab and select the "Biography" attribute and proceed to begin typing their life story in the associated Note box. The Note box approach also offers tremendous flexibility in that you can also copy text from online sources and simply paste it into the Note box. I have numerous ancestors in the royal families of England and Europe. There is a awful lot of information about these folks online, so it is very convenient for me to copy that online information and paste it into the Biography Note box. This method really creates informative and easy to read profiles for everyone.

[Hanning]

I too have a Newspaper fact and have made a sentence: {individual} is mentioned in the newspaper {date} {place} : {note}. The Note field I use for a summary eg Failure to pay rates, and I put the full text of the article in the source text. I've found that it (so far) has covered all instances.