* Sorting Source Citations

[David2416]

I am currently converting from Method 2 to Method 1 for recording my census findings using Ancestral Sources.

Sources showing order.jpg

This screenshot shows the order of the sources after splitting. I would like to sort these as it looks untidy to me as they are. Tools/Re-order Out-of-sequence Data does this satisfactorily for Spouses, Children, Events and Attributes and LDS Ordinances. However I cannot find a way of sorting these sources. I have not found anything on the Forum or Knowledge Base.

Any ideas? I know I can do it manually but ....

[gwilym'smum]

Hi,
Not sure I am following what you want but when I assign a name to the file I use a set title eg.
The 1841 census for Cain Mayer would be " x4 Mayer census 1841 Cain", for 1851 "x5 Mayer census 1851 Cain" and so on 1901, 1911 and 1939 get a y01 etc. In this way all the 1841 census entries appear together and then 1851 and the names also appear in alphabetical order and it is easy to see who is missing.

Sorry if this is not what you meant.

Ann

[Jane]

I am assuming you are talking about the Citations and not the source records.

Not seen anyone ask for this, it might be possible to write a plugin, but the problem I can see is I suspect you would not want to sort the Census above the Parish Register and a simply sort on Source name would do that.

[tatewise]

You seem to be talking about the order of the Citations for the Birth fact in your screenshot.

You can use the up/down arrows top right to change their order.
BUT those Citations should be in the order of relevance to the fact.
So the Birth Certificate/Parish Register entry should be top.
The GRO Index should be next.
The Census entries should be next in date order.

Some Queries and Plugins that review Source Citations rely on the 1st entry being the most relevant.
i.e.
If checking each Birth Event for a Birth Certificate then only the 1st Citation is inspected.
Otherwise, the expression would have to inspect all instances of the Citations in case the Birth Certificate was lower down.

[David2416]

Thank you Ann, Jane and Mike for your replies.

You seem to be talking about the order of the Citations for the Birth fact in your screenshot.

Yes that is correct, my Subject heading indicated that but the body of the text did not. Sorry for that.

You can use the up/down arrows top right to change their order.

Yes, had been doing that but was wondering if an automatic process available/possible.

BUT those Citations should be in the order of relevance to the fact.
So the Birth Certificate/Parish Register entry should be top.
The GRO Index should be next.
The Census entries should be next in date order.
Some Queries and Plugins that review Source Citations rely on the 1st entry being the most relevant.
i.e.
If checking each Birth Event for a Birth Certificate then only the 1st Citation is inspected.
Otherwise, the expression would have to inspect all instances of the Citations in case the Birth Certificate was lower down.

Ah! That I did not realise.

Clearly this affects only those Attributes/Events for which there are multiple citations. This mostly is Whole Record, Name and Birth, but there may be others. As I'm working backwards through the censuses the census citations are showing in reverse date order.

I need to put some more thought into this. At the moment I'll continue to review the results of each entry after using AS to split the census citation.

[tatewise]

At least Marriage and Death, and possibly Baptism and Burial facts, plus Occupation and Residence, are likely to have multiple Citations.

The only way to automate sorting such Citations would be with a Plugin.
It would rely on unique identification of types of Sources either by Source Type (or Source Title).
You would have to supply the Plugin with the Source Types you use in precedence order.
Then it could ensure that order is enforced.