* Ancestral Sources custom templates

[E Wilcock]

I am about to start on a new project, new place and a new set of records. So am giving some thought to Mike's suggestion that I make a custom Census template.

Looking at existing templates which provide additional information e.g. about the number of cows, sheep, pigs owned and crops produced, could anyone explain to me please what happens to this type of information that is not immediately translatable in GEDCOM terms?

Is all information entered using Ancestral sources kept in a single census event? Or is it redistributed to Events and attributes for birth, nationality, religion, occupation, race etc?

I ask this out of curiosity, as I may well stay with what I am now used to. I have entered about 1500 individuals using quick data entry, copy and paste facilities provided within fh, and after the first two days of trial and error, the entries became quick and consistent.

[tatewise]

I have moved this to the Ancestral Sources Forum.

The general answer is that it all depends on how you customise the Census Template and AS.
Many different options are possible.

The vast majority of the column details entered into the Census Grid are simply reproduced in the Auto Text box that ends up in the Text From Source field in FH as a transcript of the original Census Record.

If you investigate the ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources tutorial for Enter Census Facts it illustrates what detailed data gets created, such as whole Individual records, their Name, Sex, Birth Event details, Census Event details, Occupation Attribute details, and other facts, plus relationships between Individuals (spouses, children, etc.).

Some column details can optionally be added as a Note to one of the created facts. Those options are in the Census Template.

Whether Birth Events, or Census Events, etc, are created depends on the Column Type in the specific Census Template and the global Tools > Options > Census settings.

So depending on the details in your (non) census records, and what you want to achieve, most reasonable possibilities are feasible.
e.g.
If you create a predefined Column Type of Occupation then if that column has an entry in the grid, then an Occupation Attribute will get created for that Individual. If you do not want that, then create a Column Type of Generic instead, then the column entry may optionally be appended to the Note in the Census Event. In any case the entry will appear in the Text From Source transcript.

[E Wilcock]

First confession - I could not find the Ancestral Sources forum when I looked for it. Not even searching (a further failure of my searches this morning.).
Secondly thank you for the information Mike. I may be working with the UK 1939 census and will use ancestral sources.
But yet another failing of my searching help concerns saving of data entered in via ancestral sources.
I have been nervous of spending a morning entering data that is not saved? There is a lot on ancestral sources about saving one's settings or how to save specific data like place to a new form, but I cant fin anything about where one's data is going.

I get the feeling that to save data one has entered, one might need continually to close and reopen the designated fh file?

If I work directly in fh, I continually click File Save every quarter of an hour or so and I am reassured that I am not losing any work.

[Valkrider]

When you save an entry in Ancestral Sources it is written immediately to the gedcom file and individual(s) that the entry relates to.

Are you aware that Family Historian has an auto-save feature and usually saves IIRC every 5 minutes.

[tatewise]

You don't have to search for the Ancestral Sources Forum.
Do you see that bold green bar saying Using Family Historian?
Well scroll down a little and there is a similar bold green bar saying Ancestral Sources and its Forum is immediately underneath.

If you are working with the 1939 Register/Census then that AS Census Template is already included by default.
See Census Country: UK with Census Year: 1939.

The ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources has several tutorials and the ancestralsources:ancestral_sources_tutorial_entering_census_facts|> Ancestral Sources Tutorial ~ Enter Census Facts explains where the data goes into FH. For each new Census data entry, you would click the Save File button in AS, which updates the FH Gedcom & Media as necessary, and keeps a backup Gedcom file in the AS folders too. Many users have been using FH & AS together for many years so be assured that the data saving is quite robust.

BTW: When searching Help where were you looking? You won't find anything about AS in the FH Help, nor in our FHUG how_to:index|> Family Historian. You must look in the AS Help and in ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources.

As Colin says, there is no need to regularly click File > Save because if you have the default settings, then FH automatically saves every 5 minutes. See Tools > Preferences > File Load/Save > Enable Autosave.

[E Wilcock]

Thank you both so much. And especially about the auto save which is in action - I just checked.

There is so much I dont know. One reason I thought it wasnt saving is that FH asks whether I want to save the changes as I close? So I thought it best to save as I went along. It has been so quick and easy to add records that I cant believe I am not losing stuff.