* Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

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AndrewEllis
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Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by AndrewEllis »

Although it was a long time ago that I migrated from The Master Genealogist, there was a feature to set different facts as the Primary fact for that group. For example for the Birth fact group, you could select the Birth or baptism fact as primary, so that it was used for reports.
This was useful for charts as the Primary fact was used, so if you had selected a baptism fact as primary, then that would be used instead of the estimated birth date, useful for pre-1837 UK births.
Is there a workaround or way in FH7 to accomplish this, as I can appreciate that it's useful to have both estimated birth facts and baptism facts, each with their own citations in Family Historian?

Many thanks

Andrew
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Have a look at https://www.family-historian.co.uk/help ... afact.html, specifically the Preferred flag.
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AndrewEllis
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by AndrewEllis »

Thank you Helen for your (very) prompt reply

Andrew
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by tatewise »

Unfortunately, that Preferred Fact Flag does not give a Baptism event preference over a Birth event.
It simply identifies the preferred Baptism event out of multiple Baptism events.

I don't think it is possible to display a Preferred Baptism instead of a Birth event in Reports.

To display a Preferred Baptism event instead of a Birth event in a Diagram will need some Text Scheme conditional code.
The conditional rules would be:
Item 1) If the Baptism event has a Preferred Flag then display that Baptism event.
Item 2) Display the Birth event only if the previous item is blank.

I strongly suggest that in the Diagram > Options > Text tab you Clone... your current Text Scheme.
Then Edit Text Scheme... which will typically have a Birth item and a Baptism item in the right-hand Used Items pane.
By default, if the Birth event exists and is displayed, then the Baptism event is not displayed.

We need to insert a new item before the Birth event for a Preferred Baptism event.
So add a <Custom Item...> from the left-hand pane into the Used Items and Edit its contents:
Description: Preferred Baptism
Template: =TextIf(Exists(%INDI.BAPM._FLGS.__PREFERRED%),FactText(%INDI.BAPM%,"CT","E_Bap: _ in _"),)
That FactText(...) function is borrowed from the Baptism item but without the [1+] looping index.
Move that Preferred Baptism item up just above the Birth item.

Now Edit that Birth item and tick Only output if previous item blank.

So now it should display a Preferred Baptism, or if none display a Birth event, or if none display any Baptism events.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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LornaCraig
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by LornaCraig »

Following on from Mike's suggestion, an alternative approach would be to use the Tentative flag for the estimated birth date, and design the diagram text scheme to prevent the display of the Tentative fact(s).

Unfortunately I don't think it's possible to make corresponding adjustments for Preferred or Tentative facts in Reports. (Mike will correct me if I'm wrong.)
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AdrianBruce
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by AdrianBruce »

I realise this is going to sound a bit like the character who ignored a request and said, "Nah, you don't want to do that" but...

I'm actually curious why you think it a good idea to display a known baptism instead of an estimated birth date. If it's a "normal" report, then surely both items will get printed? I have my diagrams set to print both birth and baptism and, in the absence of an explicit birth date, I set the birth to either "Est[imated]" or "Bef[ore] baptism-date".

If, on the other hand, you only have room in the diagram for one date, it becomes a sensible question. Personally I'd still print the estimated or ranged(?) birthdate since the birth data is what I'm looking for and the baptism is never going to be a more accurate version of the birth than the estimated birth. "Your (perceived) mileage may vary".

I just offer this to encourage you to think about why you want to do something.
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AndrewEllis
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by AndrewEllis »

Absolutely no offence taken, but I quite liked the use of a definite baptism date in reports where I was never going to be able to find an exact birth date. I found this most useful in charts such as pedigree and drop down charts.

For most of the estimated dates, the information would have originally come from ages at censuses or other life events, but for those where the birth was estimated from the baptism date, I didn't really like the fact that the inferred date was coming from the same evidence and citation as the baptism date, and therefore adding little to the project as all baptisms would logically have to follow births!

From my recollection TMG also used the preferred dates for the age ranges immediately below the individuals names in the family record view.

Thanks for all the helpful comments and advice

Andrew
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AdrianBruce
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by AdrianBruce »

AndrewEllis wrote: 08 Jun 2021 16:11 ... for those where the birth was estimated from the baptism date, I didn't really like the fact that the inferred date was coming from the same evidence and citation as the baptism date, and therefore adding little to the project as all baptisms would logically have to follow births! ...
Ooh, I can relate to that "doesn't add anything" point of view!

Re baptisms following births. Hmm - I think I've seen a few trees where that didn't apply! ;)
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

My sister was baptised a month before she was born, according to her baptismal certificate
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by Valkrider »

Like Helen I have an anomaly. My wife on her Swiss baptism certificate says her date of birth is one day before her GRO birth certificate.
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AndrewEllis
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by AndrewEllis »

I'm sorry for any confusion or offence, but my point was more that adding an estimated date of birth where the evidence for that estimate came from the baptism details was not really adding what was evidenced by the source citation, which would usually be date/place of baptism and name as a minimum.

Where there is evidence of date of birth (and like most I've been lucky to find this in a few parish registers entries) I would always add it, citing the baptism entry if that was were the evidence came from.

If the birth appeared to occur after the baptism there's an obvious contradiction, and in TMG this would be an obvious example of where you would set the one you felt most reliable as primary, in FH you'd set the flags for the facts to reflect that.

Definitely not hankering for the old programme as much prefer FH!
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

If the baptism did not explicitly support birth details, I wouldn't create an estimated birth; hence before 1837, I have few if any birth facts and rely on FH's standard behviour of using baptism dates (shown as such) if birth is not present.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by tatewise »

Following up on that approach there is a caveat or two.
Presumably, the same strategy would apply to only entering a Burial event if no explicit Death date is known.
That can result in Individual records with no Birth or Death event.
In FH that is generally fine, except that no estimated Age is shown in the Facts tab.
However, when exported to other products the lack of Birth &/or Death events may have unwanted side effects.
e.g. They are treated as Living when they are not.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

tatewise wrote: 09 Jun 2021 09:16 Presumably, the same strategy would apply to only entering a Burial event if no explicit Death date is known.
That can result in Individual records with no Birth or Death event.
In FH that is generally fine, except that no estimated Age is shown in the Facts tab.
However, when exported to other products the lack of Birth &/or Death events may have unwanted side effects.
e.g. They are treated as Living when they are not.
Yes.

I export to various places (cousin bait) -- specifically the big online tree hosts like Ancestry, FindMyPast, MyHeritage; and DNA services like 23andMe, FTDNA, Gedmatch, and haven't found an issue with this.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by tatewise »

On Ancestry, if a person has no Birth event and no Death event they are flagged as BIRTH Unknown DEATH Living.
That applies even if there are Baptism and Burial events and regardless of their Dates.
You can manually edit that Status and change it to Deceased.

If you perform a Search with such a person, Ancestry advises:
"To get better results, add more information such as Birth Info and Death Info—even a guess will help."

Regarding Tree Privacy it says: All living people are private, even in public family trees.
"People marked as “living” in family trees are not visible in searches at any privacy level. Living people are visible only to the tree owner and to anyone the tree owner invites to the tree and authorizes to see living people."
"In public family trees, all information is viewable and searchable except for details about living people."

See https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/blog ... amily-tree that explains the 4 rules used to automatically determine if a person is living.

I am fairly sure I've seen similar constraints in other products.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

If you perform a Search with such a person, Ancestry advises:
"To get better results, add more information such as Birth Info and Death Info—even a guess will help."
I always manually construct my searches as I record the search parameters (and date and place) of every search in my research log. And I rarely look at anyone else's tree.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by Mark1834 »

I have found the occasional issue with exporting to Ancestry with no specific death date. Even if birth was 200 years ago, they can be flagged as living! Ditto where somebody just has a name - they can be shown as living even if they are the parent of somebody born centuries ago!

I do record estimated birth and death dates, as the context is clear from considering all the claimed facts and source citations available for an individual, but FH is sufficiently flexible to accommodate most recording styles.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Ancestry's documentation says:
1. First we look for death information, anyone with death information (date, place, etc.) is dead'that one's easy.
2. If there's not death information entered we look for a birth date, anyone younger than 100 is considered living.
3. The tricky part is if we don't have birth or death information. In this case we look at the birth dates of close relatives to estimate a birthdate; if the birthdate is less than 100 years ago, they are considered to be living.
4. If all else fails and we can't make a safe estimate, we assume the person is living to err on the safe side.
So theoretically the parents of somebody born centuries ago would be identified as dead, but no doubt their algorithm isn't fool proof.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by tatewise »

If most pre-1837 Individuals don't have any Birth and Death events then rules 1. , 2. & 3. are mostly ineffective.
i.e. Most 18th century Individuals will have Status set as Living.

I'm not saying it will necessarily be a problem but just sounding a warning that if those events are missing there may be consequences.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by Mark1834 »

Tip - it’s easy to search for living people in your tree using the iOS app, but I’ve never found a way to do it as easily on the website.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by tatewise »

We are in danger of focussing just on Ancestry. My warning applies more globally, but is just a warning not definitive.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

It's a useful warning, Mike, in case it matters to somebody.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by Debbie »

If the baptism did not explicitly support birth details, I wouldn't create an estimated birth; hence before 1837, I have few if any birth facts and rely on FH's standard behviour of using baptism dates (shown as such) if birth is not present.
Can't believe I have only just found this out, thank you so much! :) I shall omit the year of birth from now on if it is just based on the baptism date.
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by tatewise »

Debbie, note that the OP is omitting Birth events altogether not just leaving out the Date.
However, although some FH features use the Baptism Date as an estimated Birth Date many FH features do not, such as the Age calculation.
Bear in mind that if you export your Project to another product then having no Birth event may have undesirable side effects as I explained earlier. Likewise for omitting Death events in favour of Burial events.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Debbie
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Re: Setting Birth or Baptism as primary

Post by Debbie »

Debbie, note that the OP is omitting Birth events altogether not just leaving out the Date.
However, although some FH features use the Baptism Date as an estimated Birth Date many FH features do not, such as the Age calculation.
Bear in mind that if you export your Project to another product then having no Birth event may have undesirable side effects as I explained earlier. Likewise for omitting Death events in favour of Burial events.
Ah yes, Mike, I can see that now, thank you! I would prefer to see a whole baptism date on the tree, rather than just a year, (useful indicator of whether the mother was pregnant at the time of marriage), but I want the ages as well!
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