* Census details import to Family Historian 5 from TMG

[kain49member]

Hello all readers,
I recently acquired a copy of Family Historian 5 and have transferred a file from The Master Genealogist but, am now having problems getting my head around the details of the Census on FH5.
The census and the full details appear on one person, usually the head, ie. the first one on the list, and the other person/s sometimes, have just a mention in the Fact listing, but the facts of the census are only on the first person.
Other instances the census are not shown in the Fact listing at all.
It may be a TMG exporting problem but, at the moment having spent several hours on it, I am unable to sort it out.
Having several thousand, I don't wish to re-input the details from scratch.
Any help would be appreciated.
Derek Kain
Researching KAIN and variants

[tatewise]

I have installed the TMG 30-day free trial and experimented with the Sample project.
This screenshot shows the Details of John ALEXANDER (10) and a Census Tag Entry.
It is important to understand the distinction between a Census Event Tag and a Census Source Record.

TMGCensus.png (69.34 KiB) Viewed 7836 times

Normal Census Scenario
The Census 09 Sep 1850 in yellow highlighter is an Event Tag that is exported as a GEDCOM CENS tag and appears in FH as a Census Event dated 9 Sep 1850 on the Facts tab.
The Tag Entry shows it has 1 citation of Source Record #29 entitled Census, 1850, Carter Co., TN that appear in FH as a similar Citation and Source Record.

This Census Source Record #29 could be cited by any other Event Tag, such as Birth or Occupation.
This would result in Birth or Occupation Events in the GEDCOM & FH with Citations of the Source Record.
BUT would NOT result in a Census Event in the GEDCOM nor FH unless (as above) the Source Record is also cited by a Census Event Tag.

Conversely, a Census Event Tag will cause a Census Event to appear in the GEDCOM and FH, even if it does NOT have a Citation of a Census Source Record.

TMG Witness Scenario
In the screenshot, another Census _ _ 1830 entry is shown in yellow against a grey background.
This is a special TMG feature in which John ALEXANDER (10) is recorded (along with 8 siblings) as Witness to Census Source Record #6 that is cited by the Census Event Tag of their father John ALEXANDER (17).
They are all listed as members of the household in the Memo in the Census Event Tag Entry.

In this example, the Census Event Tag of father John ALEXANDER (17) will become a GEDCOM & FH Census Event.
But the 9 siblings will NOT have any such Census Event because the TMG Witness details do NOT export to GEDCOM.

The conventional GEDCOM method, that is expected in FH, is for every member of the household to have at least a Census Event Tag with the Date of the Census, and optionally each with a Citation of the same Census Record.
Typically, there will be other Events such as Birth and Occupation and Residence that will cite the same Census Record as evidence.

So to correct the above TMG Witness scenario requires a Census Event Tag dated 1830 to be added to each of the 9 siblings with a Citation of Census Source Record #6. Also the 9 Witness entries could be removed.

TMG UK Census 1??? Scenario
The UK version of TMG predefines a set of Event Tags for Census 1841, Census 1851, et seq to Census 1901.
By default these use the EVEN tag GEDCOM structure to yield similarly named Custom Events in FH.
Change them to use the CENS tag and standard Census events will be exported instead.
Alternatively, the Change Any Fact Tag FH Plugin can easily change them all to CENS tags for standard Census events.
Beforehand, just make sure each one has an appropriate Date for the Census.

[jimlad68]

Bit late in the day, but hope this helps.

I have used TMG for years, and although the Witness and Roles of TMG are excellent, if you want to share or export your data to say Rootsweb trees it is either not possible or very flaky. For that reason I never used Witness and Roles and shied clear even of Citations just using the a basic Source with event comments for anything unusual (Let's face it, without wishing to be controversial, if it is a UK Parish record of a certain Parish for a certain date, what else do you need).

So the answer to export your witness info from TMG, is to create for say a census, an event for each member of the household, which can be laborious, especially if you need to make a correction. One TMG user did create a program to convert witness to events in GEDCOM (he wanted to automatically populate a webpage(s)), but, as soon as TMG changed its table structure it was out of date.

The moral of any data structure that you might want to share is to keep it simple, or use a recognized standard, e.g. the GEDCOM standard of FH.

Jim O

P.S. I have yet to look at Associations within FH, is that a possible way of using 1 census entry for more than 2 people, or is there another way in FH.

[tatewise]

In FH and in GEDCOM you can link any Facts (Events/Attributes) for any Individual Records and any Family Records to any Source Records. (Why do you think it is restricted to 2 people?)

So to be specific. You can create a Source Record for a Census Return for a Household of any number of people.
You can then Cite that Source against a Census Event Fact for each Individual in the Household.
You can also Cite that Source for any Occupation or Residence or Birth Fact for any Individual.
So the Source Record can be cited by any number of Facts.

Conversely, any Fact can Cite any number of Source Records.
So a Birth Event Fact can not only Cite a Census Source Record but also a Birth Certificate Source Record, etc.

Furthermore, Ancestral Sources makes creating such multiple Citations very easy.
See ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources for full details.

[jimlad68]

thanks again tatewise, that is starting to make sense. I have always shied away from using Sources with citations as I found they were difficult to export "clearly" and create clear reports with "all the detail for an individual" in say an individual report or online trees.

I might so some experiments with citations and Ancestral Sources and create reports and export to Rootsweb trees, I can see the main problem being including the citation detail (where I would hope to list the "all in household/census" record) next to the census date/place etc, yet not cluttering up the rest of the report with other source details.

Coming back to the original problem of kain49member, I'm not sure it would help had he used this method in TMG. The few citations I had in TMG failed to come accross in either GEDCOM or direct TMGv7 project import. Hence in terms of portability, I would need to do some export tests as well.

cheers
jimlad

[jimlad68]

tatewise

You have encouraged me to learn a bit about citations, still a long way to go I fear, but this small snippet re source method1 and 2 was very illuminating:
http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... ry:sources

I usually use method 2, with any text attached to the tag note, but I can see how method1 (## amended from incorrect 2 ##) can be used instead of witnesses, or at least not repeating the data for many people.

So I used method 1 for a dummy census which worked fine. I could use it fine in reports, however:

- the detail was with all the source detail "at the end of the record on the same page", so this made it very disjointed from the otherwise chronological list of items. I suppose I could make a virtue out of this by adding suitable detailed source name, simple word macro to highlight it, then all the lengthy census (and any other source text) detail would appear at the end, while the initial part of the record was more punchy. It does similar things when uploaded to Rootsweb trees.

- It is not as easy to view the source text (as opposed to facts) from the individual property box, the quickest way I could find was to select the Fact > select the source > select the yellow triangle which then displayed the source with text. However on returning to the individual fact page, focus returns to the first item, not the previously viewed one.
It would be nice to be able to have more than one floating property box open! Perhaps I could work out a report or query that I could flip to instead.

I feel a restructure coming on, or at least for any new data!

thanks again
Jimlad

[tatewise]

Methods 1 & 2

ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources offers full support for Method 1 and Method 2.

The thinking behind which Method to use hinges on the database concept of recording any piece if information only once.

If all the details regarding a Source are captured by the standard Fact fields of Date, Age, Place, Address, Cause, then Method 2 will usually be OK.
But with Method 2 there is no one place to hold further details about a particular Source Document (i.e. transcript and image).
It either has to be replicated in the Fact Notes or Citation Text From Source/Notes, or in addition to Citation links there must be Note Record links to the transcript &/or Multimedia Record links to the image(s).

With Method 1 there only needs to be the Citation link to a Source Record where the transcript in Text From Source and images in Multimedia and Repository details are all recorded in one place. Thus any updates only affect the one Source Record.

Reports

If the Source details were incorporated with each Fact then IMO it would make Reports more cumbersome and the basic chronological sequence of Facts would be obscured.

Remember that many Facts such as Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Census (several), Death, Burial, Probate, etc, are likely to have one or more Source Citations each.
e.g. A Birth Event may have Citations for a Church Baptism Record and several Census Records all confirming when and where the person was born.
If the Source Record details were included with each Fact then there could be many repetitions.
e.g. The Birth Event and Census Event and perhaps an Occupation Attribute could all cite the same Census Record which would be repeated against each Fact!

Furthermore, given that Spouses and Children are often included in the same Report then there may be many repetitions of the same Source Record details amongst each persons Facts.
e.g. A Census Event for each family member would have a Citation to the same Census Source Record.

Navigation

You last point about navigating through the data is a known annoyance and there are several related Wish List entries:
Go Back should restore its parent Record context
Field to stay in focus on app switch
etc...

There are alternative display options:
(1)
Instead of using the yellow triangular Go to Source Record button, click on the [+] next to the Source Title or double click the Source Title, and the details will expand below. Unfortunately long text fields and images cannot be further expanded.
(2)
Use either the All tab of the Property Box, or probably better the Records Window.
Click the [+] next to the Individual Name to expand the details.
Click the [+] next to the Facts of interest and all the Source Record citations are listed.
In this state a double-click on any Individual Name opens their Individual Property Box and a double-click on any Source Title opens the Source Property Box.
From those boxes any tab can be used, Go Back/Forward works well, and the context is retained in the Records Window.