Family Historian User Group

I find my family tags/events that import into FH are importing as single events with the 2nd person in the family event importing as a witness to the event. Why is this happening? This definitely did not happen during FHv6. Why was this change made?

My example of an Individual Narrative:
Charles Edward Spittler1 was born on 4 November 1880 in Prairie Township, Iowa.1 Charles married Olga Ione Hanks on 27 October 1901 in Fremont County, Iowa.1 He appeared on the 1910 US Federal Census at Argyle St, Hamburg, Fremont County, Iowa enumerated on 25 April 1910 They rent their home.2 1

Olga Ione Hanks1 (also known as Olga Ione Spittler), daughter of Edmund Pemberton Hanks (1855-1924) and Hannah M Atwood (1861-1943), was born on 30 November 1883 in Page County, Iowa.1 She was a Principal 2 at 1910Cen of Charles Edward Spittler on 25 April 1910 in Argyle St.2 s

As you can see any info in the memo/note field doesn't make sense for a single person: "They rent their home"

Linda Reinfeld

Linda, can you please provide more details about this import.
Presumably, you are using the TMG Direct Import process and not a GEDCOM.
Unfortunately, the report does not demonstrate anything conclusively or could explain what is happening

What has led to repeating this import if it has already been successfully imported via FH V6?

Where does the "They rent their home" exist? What fact and what part of that fact?

Your example does not identify anything as a family tag/event, so please show the Property Box Facts tab for Charles.
The equivalent fragment of data in TMG and in the project GEDCOM file would also help.
You can see that data but without showing us it is difficult to provide any answers.

Hi Mike -

(Background story) I know that I have to move from TMG at some point, and FH has been my program of choice. However I have chosen not to make the transition until I am forced to - TMG is the best program, but it is unsustainable. So I prepare, and did so with v6; sort dates were a problem then, and they were fixed. I convert every so often to keep my plan B active.

I apologize for not giving the correct data to show the problem - don't know enough about FH. My output will be narrative reports and an online system - already in place. That's why I refer to narrative reports; sentences are important to me.

I used TMG direct import. I did not check the box to import the TMG sentences. My first import into v7 I did that, and most of the sentences did not translate well at all.


True, there is not a family event for Charles & his wife Olga. That is the problem. Even though the data in TMG had a P1 and P2 the event (1910 Census) came across as a single event. The 'memo' for the TMG tag is 'They rent their home'. That should translate to the FH note. which it did, but as in TMG the memo/note refers to a couple, the note/memo in FH doesn't make sense.


I don't know how to show you the Gedcom because I didn't use Gedcom at all.
I hope the attached files are what you asked for - otherwise I will need more instructions.

Thank you -

Linda Reinfeld

Thank you Linda; that makes much more sense and I can try and explain what is happening.

BTW: Have you seen the FHUG Knowledge Base advice on Importing to Family Historian with a section dedicated to TMG?
It needs updating for FH V7 but does give useful advice.

In the FH Facts tab, Individual facts have a blue bullet and Family facts have a red bullet.
Also, Timeline facts have a grey bullet and shared Fact Witnesses have a large blue arrow.

So in your screenshot, the Marriage event is a Family fact with a red bullet and the others are Individual facts.
If the 1910 Census only had Charles and Olga sharing the fact then it would have imported as a Census (family) event and the memo/note would be OK. However, it is also shared with their sons Lester and Ernest, so FH imports that as one Individual Census event for Charles shared with Olga, Lester & Ernest as indicated by the 3-blue-ball icon in the More column on the right. If you double-left-click that 1910 Census event those three will be listed and the Go To button will let you jump to those entries in each person's Facts tab which will have a blue arrow.

However, I think there may be a problem with "They rent their home" even in TMG as it only applies to Charles & Olga but NOT to Lester and Ernest, or does that memo somehow not get displayed in the sons' reports?

May I suggest that to understand the impact of migrating from TMG to FH you spend a little more time investigating FH, otherwise when you are forced to make the transition you will have a very steep learning curve and the ability to make beneficial changes in TMG may not be available if it has stopped working.

Mike -

I do understand the difference between a red bullet & a blue bullet. The first sentence of my post says 'I find my family tags/events that import into FH are importing as single events'.

My question is why is an event with 2 principals importing as a single event and not a couple event. Just because there are witnesses to an event should not change the event to a single event with witnesses.

The memo/note (they rent their home) refers to the couple, not the witnesses. The witnesses have their own memo. That however, is another problem in the import from TMG.

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to fit my data into FH format and trying to understand the system. Please respect that.

Mike,

Linda's first issue is a fundamental change in the FH7 import from TMG.

FH6 imported family events with 2 principals as family events with 2 principals.

FH7 imports family events with 2 principals as individual events with the 2nd principal as a witness with the role 'Principal 2'.

We're trying to understand why this is being done. 1 EVEN 2 TYPE events are supported as family events in the GEDCOM 5.5.1 specs. Why change those with 2 principals to individual events? There are also some bugs in the process that I've reported to CP.

You'll note that Linda said that she didn't use the new sentence mapping feature. She was expecting to use the fact types that she had created in FH6.

I've asked her to use the default TMG import settings so that the discussion can start from there.

Jim

Linda, I apologise for underestimating your understanding. It is sometimes difficult to tell how much detail to provide.

You say the 2 principals importing as an Individual event did not happen in FH V6.
Is that with this same Census fact with 2 principals & 2 witnesses, or in FH V6 was it a Census with 2 principals but no witnesses?

If the latter, then can you find that Census with just 2 principals and see whether it still imports as a Family event.
Otherwise, temporarily remove the 2 sons as witnesses and import the Census with just Charles & Olga as principals.
I am trying to determine if FH normally imports a fact with just 2 married principals as a Family event, but gets upset if there are witnesses. If that happens then it should be reported to Calico Pie as a problem to be fixed, especially if you think it has changed from FH V6.

Jim, some Family events with 2 principals are importing as Family events, c.f. the Marriage event in Linda's screenshot.
Also, the rule is that the 2 principals have to be a Family couple.
However, if FH V7 has changed the rules and facts with 2 Family couple principals are not all becoming Family facts then that is a fault that needs reporting.

In Linda's example, custom EVENts are not needed as both Individual CENSus and Family CENSus standard events are available.

Mike,

From my testing, TMG residence events with 2 principals and no witnesses are importing as individual events with the 2nd principal as a witness with the role 'Principal 2'.

I'm pretty sure that all 2-principal _custom_ events are importing as described in the previous paragraph whether they have witnesses or not. I need to investigate this further.

The only 2-principal events importing as family events are the standard events such as Marriage, Divorce, etc. There is no issue with those events.

Linda's census events are custom events (1910Cen, 1920Cen, etc.) as seen in her screenshot, not Census per se.

I'll have Linda's TMG project shortly so she and I can get on the same page.

Jim

Hi Mike - Thanks

I imported from TMG again, using the same parameters. I deleted the 2 witnesses from Charles Spittler, kept the event with him & his wife. It imported as a single fact. Blue dot.

I think this is a problem. Or anyway a change.....

Thanks - Linda Reinfeld

To support what Linda said...

I wrote...
> I'm pretty sure that all 2-principal _custom_ events are importing as described in the previous paragraph whether they have witnesses or not. I need to investigate this further.

All TMG custom events with 2 principals, Residence events with 2 principals, Census events with 2 principals irrespective of whether the events have additional witnesses import as individual events with the 2nd principal added as a witness with the role 'Principal 2'.

While this works, it needs to be an import option to give the user a choice of how FH6 handled these events.

I suspect that the note issue just requires an edit to the global fact type sentences. Waiting for her data.

Jim

I had overlooked that Linda's Census events were custom events but that should not alter the import rules.
What you describe is certainly a change from the way FH V6 imported such 2-principal facts.
Have you reported these symptoms to Calico Pie and have they replied?
There appear to be a number of 'features' throughout FH V7 that are different from FH V6 and most but not all are bugs.

Hi Mike -

I had not reported this to CP because I didn't know if it was a bug or a 'feature' or something I had done incorrectly.

I shall report it to them.

Linda

Mike,

John Cardinal is doing the same with custom 2-principal events with his TMG to GEDCOM application.

The reason is that TMG allows 2-principal non-family events (the principals are not married or the parents of a child). Making the 2nd principal a witness allows all 2-principal events to be exported to GEDCOM or to be imported to FH7 (as we're discussing here).

I suspect this is a feature that isn't going away.

Using Linda's data, I see a number of issues with the sentence construction after import. Most are not mapping issues but have to do with conditionals, spaces, and commas. These can be fixed by editing the templates although I'll report them.

There are extra spaces before the notes at the end of her sentences in an Individual Narrative report. This issue can't be fixed in the template and the template preview is correct so it's a report output issue. I'll report that.

Jim

In FH V6 the rule always was that the 2-principals had to be a Family couple for the fact to become a Family fact.
Whether there are complications with turning standard Individual facts into custom Family facts is another issue.
However, I believe it should always be possible.

If the 2-principals are not a Family couple then FH has no option but to create 1-principal & 1-witness for the Individual fact.

That is what FGUG KB Importing to Family Historian for TMG has always said (for FH V6):

Every Tag with 2 Principal Persons as spouses/partners becomes a Family Fact (Event/Attribute)
Every Tag with 2 Principal Persons not spouses/partners becomes an Individual Fact of 1st with 2nd as Witness

Maybe that advice in the KB was wrong but that was believed to be the rules at the time.

Mike,

Thanks for the quote. I filed this support request...

Could these rules be followed for the TMG import?
1) Every Tag with 2 Principal Persons as spouses/partners becomes a Family Fact (Event/Attribute)
2) Every Tag with 2 Principal Persons not spouses/partners becomes an Individual Fact of 1st with 2nd as Witness

Currently (v7.0.2.0)... Every Tag with 2 Principal Persons becomes an Individual Fact of 1st with 2nd as Witness​​​

This is not a good thing.

Linda has filed a support ticket with something similar.

Jim

The 2-principal TMG import issue could be resolved with a plug-in and this is a much simpler solution than messing with the current TMG import code.

The user would need to create an appropriate family fact type.

The user backs up and runs the plug-in.

1) Enter the names of the fact type (individual) and fact type (family)

2) The code checks for the fact type (individual) tags.

3) If a tag is found, determine if there is a witness with the role 'Principal 2'.

4) If so, determine if there is a family record for the Principal 1 and the witness 'Principal 2'.

5) If so, move the individual tag to the family record.

6) Change the fact type to the fact type (family).

7) Delete the Principal 2 witness from the tag.

8) Re-curse and continue the search for the fact type (individual) records until all are processed.

I have just been going through for a final time before making the switch to FH7 from TMG

I had been doing some tidying up using the “change any fact tag” plugin and wondered why it wasn’t appearing.

I have a TMG tag which I created was a clone of the Marriage fact and for marriage registrations has been imported into FH7 as an individual event with a witness rather than a family fact.

I had thought of changing it in TMG before making the move but can't find a way to change it there either!

John, it sounds like your symptoms are the same as Linda Reinfeld and Jim Byram have experienced.

Linda and Jim have reported those symptoms to Calico Pie but without any feedback of their reply such as whether it is likely to get fixed soon.

Jim has suggested a Plugin as a "much simpler solution" but it is not clear if he is proposing to write it.

Whether a Plugin is worth writing depends on whether Calico Pie will fix the problem soon and how many such facts are affected ~ if only relatively few then a manual edit is easier than writing a Plugin that only has limited usage.

Mike
Thanks for the reply - I will check carefully through the fact that I am importing as to whether there is anything else - not aware of any that I can think of

A couple I would have changed manually and maybe even 100 but 3,500 is a little much!

Regards
John

Have been through and checked both in FH7 and TMG and I only have one other event in TMG that does not convert

I seem to remember reading either in FHUG or the mailing list that it is a known issue

That is a Civil Partnership which took place in 2020 and is in fact has been a legal form of marriage in the UK since 2005

I am trying to get a copy of the certificate from the person concerned to see what the differences are to a normal marriage certificate

Being a one-off I can cope with it
Regards
John

See the FHUG KB on Recording a Civil Partnership that recommends using the standard Marriage Event with appropriate customisations.

Mike
Thanks for the link will sort that one when I do the import
Where can I find the list of submissions to Calico Pie to follow what is happening on this one
Regards
John

You have hit a raw nerve with that request John.
Such reports via http://www.calico-pie.com/osticket/open.php are a private dialogue between the originator and Calico Pie.
Calico Pie do not publish those reports, so it is up to the originators (Jim and Linda) to inform us of any progress.
You can either Email Jim and Linda to find out, or submit your own report of the problem.

Hi all,
As a newbie, it seems like I have run into the same issue as reported in this thread, using direct import from TMG with the TMG Census tag with two principles (married couple). Running FH 7.0.22.

Does anyone have any update on the response from CP or info about the potential plugin hinted at above or workarounds that would solve this issue? Appologies if it is found elsewhere on the forum...

Rgds,
Tor

There are several sources of information for importing from TMG.

See the CP page Importing from The Master Genealogist especially Fact Types and Custom Facts.
There are import options that affect how Fact Type Tags are handled and possibly merged.
e.g.
It is advisable to merge various custom Census facts into the standard GEDCOM/FH Census Event (CENS tag).

The CP Page Version 7 Updates has TMG Import advice:
7.0.18
The Master Genealogist (TMG) Import
Family Historian sometimes treated some TMG tag type as Individual fact types, when they should have been Family fact types. The new policy is that if a TMG tag type is associated with a standard GEDCOM tag for a Family event, it will be treated as a Family fact type when imported, even if it isn’t assigned that GEDCOM tag (which can happen if more than one tag type shares a GEDCOM tag, and the option to merge fact definitions is not chosen). If that does not apply, a tag type will be imported as a Family fact type if the tag type belonged to either the ‘Marriage’ or ‘Divorce’ tag type group, within TMG.
7.0.9
Direct Import from The Master Genealogist (TMG)
The method used for matching TMG tag types to Family Historian fact types has been improved, and the rules relating to this have been clarified. In general, you are recommended to only associate any given GEDCOM tag with at most one TMG tag type. The exception is if you wish to merge fact types on import (there is a new import option that supports this – see the Help for the TMG Import Options page, in the import dialog box, for more details).

If those don't answer your questions then ask CP.