* Hiding Photos of Documents

[SquashIt]

My chart has photos displayed on my family tree, which worked well until I attached media to some individuals that are of documents and I don't want to show those on the tree.

I found the option to flag them to Exclude from Diagrams, but I wondered whether there is a way to distinguish photos of people from those of documents and exclude them automatically?

[LornaCraig]

It is normally recommended that only photos of the person are linked directly to the whole record for individual.

Images of documents are linked to Source records and/or to the specific facts they support. Some documents can be a source for several different facts. For example a marriage certificate (in the UK) is a source of information not just about the date and place of a marriage but about the ages of the bride and groom, their residences at the time of the marriage, the names of their fathers and the fathers' occupations. If you create a Source record for the Marriage certificate and link the image to that, you can then cite the same source against all of those facts.

You can also, if you wish, link the image directly to a fact, using the Show Media icon (looks like two overlapping picture frames) in the toolbar of the Facts tab in the Property box.

[tatewise]

For further advice see the FHUG Knowledge Base:
Adding Photographs and Other Media
Adding Multimedia to a Fact (Video Tutorial)
Sources and Citations in Version 7 (for New Users)

[SquashIt]

Thanks for the advice Lorna. On Ancestry, sources found on ancestry behave as you describe.

However, for documents found elsewhere and uploaded, you have to create source records for each individual and attach the media, although the source can be attached to many facts for the individual. Strangely, media can be attached to many individuals.

I am syncing the Ancestry data to Family Tree Maker and importing from there to Family Historian. Hence my issue.

[LornaCraig]

Ah! So the issue you have seen with images of ducuments appearing in diagrams is a sign of an underlying problem. Sadly Ancestry is not much help when it comes to handling sources other than its own. So instead of
creating new sources in Ancestry I suggest creating the new sources in FH, which would behave in the right way.

Many people prefer to make FH their main working database and do occasional one-way exports from FH to Ancestry, but not the other way round. If you do most of your work on Ancestry and import from there to FH, via FTM, you may have to accept that the data in FH will always need tidying up, and it will need to be done after every import.

The usual advice is to choose one as your main working database and do occasional exports to the other. Two way syncing is bound to lead to inconsistencies and occasional loss of data.

[tatewise]

Strangely, media can be attached to many individuals.

That is a reasonable feature for such as family group photos, where the same photo could be attached to every Individual appearing in the photo. In FH that photo can even have a head & shoulders frame for each Individual.
It does not necessarily mean that it is a good idea to attach source documents directly to Individual records.

[SquashIt]

Thanks for the feedback. Food for thought. My original idea in making Ancestry my main database was because it is highly likely to outlast me and be discoverable. Data on my hard drive, probably not. Ancestry is also where most sources come from in my case.

I had thought it a bad idea to enter data into FTM as well and sync to Ancestry, because as you point out, two way syncing could lead to inconsistencies. But maybe I should rethink and do a few tests.

Also I have not really examined working with Ancestry data directly in FTM to see whether FTM could be my main working database.