Family Historian User Group

I notice that there is not a Residence attribute for a Family Record.

What are the objections to creating one (with say a Title of Fam Residence)? Or is it better to enter individual attributes for husband and wife?

I did ponder this myself and eventually did create one. A custom event for Family Record Types called "Residence (family)" so it sorted next to "Residence" in the list of fact types and reminded me that I had it.

However, I had to drill it into my own head that the "Residence (family)" event applied only to the two spouses and not to their children.

Well, of course(?), if you try to assign a Family Event to one of the children, it will look for their spouse to assign the family event to. So basically, repeat after yourself, many many times that it applies only to the "husband" and "wife" (or whatever they are).

That means you can have a single event applying to both "husband" and "wife" (or whatever) but you still need individual residences for the children. Usually, any description of the house is entered once against the notes in the "Residence (family)" event and the children just have their own residence event whose note simply says "Lived with their parents".

Once one of the "husband" or "wife" dies - or leaves the family in any other way - then revert to single individual residence events for the survivor.

To be honest, it probably doesn't save much but I just have this unreasoned (actually, very much reasoned!) prejudice against duplication and this is the best I can do.

(Anyone who wants to mention witnesses at this point doesn't need my help!)

That's what I do, at any rate....

I'm all for keeping it simple, I think I'll stick with individual entries. I think I realised it only applied to the parents, but it sounds simpler to avoid the complication.

Thanks

There are a number of considerations, and Adrian has raised a few.

Similar arguments apply to Census and Census (family) and the general advice is to avoid Census (family) for the reasons given in how_to:recording_census_records|> Recording from a Census Record.

Consider how you may want to use Queries and Reports.

If you write a Fact Query listing where a person resided then you must include both Residence and Residence (family) facts and ensure both the Individual record and either of the Spouse records matches the person required. Whereas, if only Residence facts are used the Query is much simpler.

Check the layout of any Reports you like to use to see where Residence and Residence (family) facts appear.
They will typically be split between distinctly separate sections.

ColinMc wrote: ↑14 Jan 2020 22:27 I'm all for keeping it simple, I think I'll stick with individual entries. ...

I wouldn't argue with you! Truth is I'm on something like my 4th scheme for how to record residences for households with more than 1 person in. Each scheme has solved one problem and created another in my head!!!

Mike's comments are important for all sorts of things - most importantly: consider what your queries will need to look like, and check the reports that you think you'll be using to see how they'll end up.