* Fact Types

[capnkeith]

There has been recent discussion on best practice for using Sir and Titles etc. But I am wondering how others record high status jobs with or without titles such as a Privy Counsellor, Chancellor or Ambassador etc. Occupation works for Ag Labs, Servants, Trades people even Doctors, but it doesn't really work for Privy Counsellor, or even for Lord of the Bedchamber . The best I have come up with is to duplicate the Occupation fact type and use a different label like Role or Position. Or create a new fact type all together, that would also cater for other things that don't quite fit existing fact types. Such as "Fled the Country to save his neck" Then come back under another name, when a more favourable King came to the throne.

Regards

[Jane]

To be honest I would record Privy Counsellor and Lord of the Bed Chamber as Titles (the attribute version), rather than occupations, as they infer a status more than a description of what they do. Don't forget you can over-ride the sentences for any specific occurrence of an item to make the sentences read better.

[DavidNewton]

I agree in principle with Jane's response but would add that If an individual has lead an interesting life, which is well documented: obituaries, military service records, biographical dictionaries and so on, then I write a biographical note attached to their record combining the information as well as recording pertinent parts of it as events or attributes.

David

[tatewise]

The way users choose to record such things depends on various factors.

• Maybe exported Gedcom need to be highly portable to other products such as TNG, or Ancestry/FMP online trees.
  In which case Standard Events/Attributes are often preferred.
• Maybe Narrative Reports are of particular importance.
  In which case Fact Type Sentence structure is significant.
• Maybe other Reports or Diagrams are important.
  In which case minimum changes to standard Report Options and Diagram Options may be significant.

So what may be the best solution for one user is not necessarily the best for another.
It depends on their objectives, and illustrates the flexibility of FH.

[AdrianBruce]

Perhaps just to be awkward (surely not, he said hopefully), I'd disagree with the earlier responses. If someone's occupation is "ambassador", I really don't see any objection to that as an occupation. It's not a name or anything like that so it's certainly not part of the name. It's not really the same sort of thing as an aristocratic title. Ditto "Privy Counsellor".

Where it gets slightly dodgy is where there is only one such holder of that "occupation" at any one time. "Lord High Admiral" seems sold a bit short by "occupation". Ditto "King of Scots" ("Name?" "Robert Bruce", "Occupation?", "Err, King, King of the Scots, actually...")

That question of how many seems to be the nub of it for me - "archbishop" (lower case) is an occupation; "Archbishop of Canterbury" is a title. (And no, I don't have one of those in my tree. 6G GF Purdy did, however, know John Wesley).

And David is very right - use the Notes for the occupation / title in question.... As is Mike with his comment on checking how it will be used.

[StevieSteve]

In Adrian's example, I'd have the Occupation as Clergyman, then a Custom Attribute, Grade, for Archbishop and Title of Archbishop of Canterbury.

I use grade for

Apprentice, Journeyman, Master
Constable, Sergeant, Inspector
Priest, Rector, Bishop
Etc

which then allows me to assign a perìod to a single occupation for an individual so that I don' t have 1 Curate, 1 Vicar, 1 Bishop and 1 Archbishop for the same person. Also simplifies expressions for setting diagram icons.

[capnkeith]

My thoughts were to do something like David suggested and have a field where I could put in a small biography. I created a fact labelled 'biog' but hadn't worked out how to make a larger window to enter the text, other than using the note field. But then considered that it was probably bad practice, as all of the facts would make up a persons biography. Would it then be right to label one small section of it 'Biography'?

Using the standard fact 'Title' as Jane Suggested works for me in most scenarios and I could use several in a diagram box without the fact label, so that they looked like a paragraph. I could not see a way to do the same, remove the fact label, in reports.

What I would like is something that could be included in the list of facts in a diagram box or on a report. With a label (if necessary) more fitting than 'Biography', an abbreviation perhaps but not 'Note'. This to be filled in as other facts via the Property Box/ Facts Tab with a larger window for adding no more than say 3-4 lines of text. Anything more would be referred to the attached full biography / source document.

Is it possible?

[tatewise]

Well Keith, let's see what we can do, but a modicum of experimentation on your part, using the Family Historian Sample Project would go a long way.

The only multi-line long-text fields per Fact are Address and Note (but Address is of course unsuitable).
You can open the Note box into a larger Note edit window by clicking the [...] button on its right.
You cannot add your own 'custom' fields of any type whatsoever.

I do not understand why you want Title attributes in a Diagram Box without their Fact Label so they look like a paragraph. Usually in a Diagram Box each fact is listed on a separate line, so I do not understand how a paragraph applies. But certainly the Text Scheme can be customised to omit any Fact Label.

Regarding Reports, there are several major classes, and each has very different capabilities :-

1. Summary Reports
   These include the Individual Summary Report and the Family Group Sheet that list each fact separately, and use the Fact Label in the first column to identify the fact.
   However, the Fact Types definition can reduce the Fact Label to a single character, or any other abbreviation.
   BTW: To retain the Fact name in the Property Box Facts tab and Records Window use the Advanced override options as per how_to:understanding_expressions|> Understanding Expressions under Override Templates but with a very simple Expression such as Biography {date} {place}.
   The Note box content has no 'Note' label in the report, so whatever you put in the box appears unaltered in the second column of Summary Reports.
2. Narrative Reports
   These include the Individual and Ancestors/Descendants by Generation that do not use the Fact Label at all, but use the Sentence Template that in FH V6 can be highly customised to produce a biographical style report.
   Again the Note box content has no 'Note' label, so whatever you put in the box appears in the report.
3. Outline Reports
   I suspect you are not interested in these, but correct me if I'm wrong.

So "Is it possible?" depends on exactly which of the above options you are interested in.

[capnkeith]

The reason for not using the label 'Title' in a Diagram box is because the subject of the line was not relevant to a Title.

Thanks for your help. I will now go and have a play.