* Death certificate

AS allows faster and more convenient creation of source records for Family Historian.
Post Reply
User avatar
gwilym'smum
Superstar
Posts: 302
Joined: 01 Feb 2016 16:28
Family Historian: V6.2
Location: South Cheshire
Contact:

Death certificate

Post by gwilym'smum »

Hello,
I am wondering if I am entering something incorrectly or is it meant to be. I am entering death certificates via AS. I fill in the details for the informant usually as a family member and add the image, save and go back to FH. When I look at the details for the informant on the date of the death the entry is "death", not informant on death or death of wife (eg). I have a fact for informant on death, which I have entered manually sometimes. As it comes up on the informant's fact list as death it makes me think it is their death. I have actually deleted several of these facts on other individuals as I thought I might have entered them wrongly in the past but I have just checked with the informant that there was no fact of death on the date in question and after I had completed the entry it appeared. Am I filling in AS wrongly somewhere please?
Ann
Researching Mayer, Parr/Parr, Simcock, Beech and all related families
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Ann, when entering Informant details in AS V5 with FH V6 it uses the new Fact Witnesses feature with the Role: of Informant which is NOT defined in FH as explained in ancestralsources:family_historian_birth_death_informant_witness_role|> Family Historian Birth & Death Informant Witness Role.
If you want to avoid that happening in future use Tools > Options > Death settings and untick Informant centre bottom.
(You may want to do the same for Birth settings.)

If you want to use your custom Informant on Death fact, then use Further Info tab Associated Individuals with Association: of Witnesses. You may have to use Edit and define the Method: as Custom Event and Event: as your custom fact as explained in ancestralsources:tutorial:templates:associated_individual_types|> Ancestral Sources Tutorial ~ Working With Templates ~ (4) Associated Persons, unless you defined that when using AS earlier versions.

I guess you have not used AS for Death Certificates since Fact Witnesses were introduced?
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
gwilym'smum
Superstar
Posts: 302
Joined: 01 Feb 2016 16:28
Family Historian: V6.2
Location: South Cheshire
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by gwilym'smum »

Thanks Mike will have to print that off and follow to the letter!. I have only recently started sending for lots of death certs since the GRO PDF ones and really regret that I haven't done so sooner they have been amazing, the most informative, not only giving causes but giving additional information which I hadn't found elsewhere. I had entered some manually but thought it would be better with AS.
Thanks again as usual.
Ann
Researching Mayer, Parr/Parr, Simcock, Beech and all related families
User avatar
themoudie
Famous
Posts: 149
Joined: 30 Mar 2015 17:53
Family Historian: V7
Location: Scotland

Re: Death certificate

Post by themoudie »

Aye Mike,

I was plucking up courage to have another try at entering data into FH v6.2 using AS v5.2.0 and then read this thread and the link that you provided: ancestralsources:family_historian_birth_death_informant_witness_role|> Family Historian Birth & Death Informant Witness Role.
After reading this linked page I noticed in the final paragraph (ancestralsources:family_historian_birth_death_informant_witness_role#other_considerations|> Other Considerations) that "So rather than use an Informant Witness Role, it may be better to use a Custom Event where those different details can be recorded."

If I was to choose to follow the advice in this final paragraph to create 2 new "Custom Events" rather than "Informant Witness Roles"; would it be possible or correct to use the methodology of ancestralsources:tutorial:templates:associated_individual_types#associated_individual_types_editor|> Associated Individual Types Editor to create the 'Birth Informant' and 'Death informant' fields (Signature, Qualification and Residence) within AS/FH for the data required in the Scottish death register entry, column 7, an example of which I attach? The same format applies to the Scottish birth register entry form, but the data is found in column 5?

Or am I being too simplistic? :?

I apologies aforehand if this question appears crass, but as with GIS software, I find this multi customisable ability very intimidating. :oops:

Thank you for your time and patience.

My regards, Bill
Attachments
Example of  a post 1855 Scottish Statutory Death Register page and entries.
Example of a post 1855 Scottish Statutory Death Register page and entries.
1870-01-31_John_Archbald_Anderson_dth.tif (77.64 KiB) Viewed 14733 times
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Hi Bill,

There are several aspects to this process (that Ann may also want to study).
I have assumed Method 1 Source Citations.
  1. In FH you must create the Birth Informed and Death Informed custom events (or whatever you want to call them).
  2. In AS you must use Tools > Options > Birth/Death settings and Edit the Associated Individuals definition for Informant (or whatever you prefer) using a Custom Event method and supply your custom event names from 1. above.
  3. In AS you must use Tools > Options > Birth/Death settings and untick Informant - Use witness role...

    Then for each Birth/Death Certificate:
  4. In AS enter all the relevant details for the primary person, and for informant as follows...
  5. In AS enter the Informant details on the Registration tab for Birth and Main 2 tab for Death.
    The Informant name is effectively their Signature from certificate.
    The Informant Description is their Qualification from certificate.
    The Informant Residence is their Residence from certificate and will create a Residence fact for them.
  6. In AS enter the Informant details on the Further Info tab for Association of Informant (or what you chose in 2. above).
    <<Select the informant and Add them.
  7. Use Auto Text and select a certificate format to create a draft transcript, then manually edit to match the actual certificate.
  8. Use Add/View Images to link the image of the certificate as usual.
When saved that will create all the usual facts for the primary person, and the Birth/Death Informed event and a Residence fact for the informant. Those facts will all cite the one Birth/Death Source record with its Text From Source transcript and Media image. You may need to adjust the Date of the Birth/Death Informed event, which will default to the Birth/Death Date rather than the Registration Date.

Have a trial run on the FH Sample Project until you get the hang of it.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
themoudie
Famous
Posts: 149
Joined: 30 Mar 2015 17:53
Family Historian: V7
Location: Scotland

Re: Death certificate

Post by themoudie »

Aye Mike,

Thank you very much for the 'blow by blow' instructions in answer to my request. You were correct to assume Method 1 Source Citations. I will use the instructions and then report back in the near future.

Good health and my regards, Bill
Last edited by themoudie on 31 Jan 2018 16:21, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
gwilym'smum
Superstar
Posts: 302
Joined: 01 Feb 2016 16:28
Family Historian: V6.2
Location: South Cheshire
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by gwilym'smum »

Likewise Mike thank you. Very stupid question, do you have to do it for every entry or does it remain set? Thanks Ann
Researching Mayer, Parr/Parr, Simcock, Beech and all related families
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Steps 1, 2 & 3 are only needed once.

Steps 4 to 8 are needed for each certificate.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
themoudie
Famous
Posts: 149
Joined: 30 Mar 2015 17:53
Family Historian: V7
Location: Scotland

Re: Death certificate

Post by themoudie »

Thank you Mike.

My regards, Bill
User avatar
gwilym'smum
Superstar
Posts: 302
Joined: 01 Feb 2016 16:28
Family Historian: V6.2
Location: South Cheshire
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by gwilym'smum »

Thanks Mike
Ann
Researching Mayer, Parr/Parr, Simcock, Beech and all related families
User avatar
themoudie
Famous
Posts: 149
Joined: 30 Mar 2015 17:53
Family Historian: V7
Location: Scotland

Re: Death certificate

Post by themoudie »

Aye Mike,

I have failed at the first hurdle! :oops:
tatewise wrote:Hi Bill,

There are several aspects to this process (that Ann may also want to study).
I have assumed Method 1 Source Citations.
  1. In FH you must create the Birth Informed and Death Informed custom events (or whatever you want to call them).
  2. In AS you must use Tools > Options > Birth/Death settings and Edit the Associated Individuals definition for Informant (or whatever you prefer) using a Custom Event method and supply your custom event names from 1. above.
  3. In AS you must use Tools > Options > Birth/Death settings and untick Informant - Use witness role...
The creation of the "Birth Informant" Custom Event has me bewildered, I am not sure which "data reference" 'field' to associate the 'Label' Informant Signature' with. I attach a screen dump with highlights of where I think I should be selecting the field from. I have read and have open this HELP page: https://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?i ... ed_persons and also this help page: https://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?i ... tness_role

This may all seem petty and maybe I should just use the new FHv6 'Witness' feature and ignore the pedantics of the "Witness" not necessarily witnessing the event. But, I hate being beaten by binary logic and don't find this "intuitive". I apologise for wasting your time on such mundane queries.

If you think that this should be moved to the FH General Queries forum or elsewhere, please do.

Yours, Bill
Attachments
Screen dump referred to in Custom Item message.
Screen dump referred to in Custom Item message.
Birth_Informant_Custom_event_create1.gif (203.23 KiB) Viewed 14457 times
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Ah, you have misunderstood.
Your screenshot shows you creating a Property Box Custom Item but that only works for existing data items.
You must use Tools > Fact Types and create a New custom Fact Definition for both Birth Informed and Death Informed events. Those are the events that AS will add to the Informant as the Associated Individual and those facts will cite the Birth/Death Certificate Source record where the details are lodged.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
themoudie
Famous
Posts: 149
Joined: 30 Mar 2015 17:53
Family Historian: V7
Location: Scotland

Re: Death certificate

Post by themoudie »

Aye Mike,

"In FH you must create the Birth Informed and Death Informed custom events (or whatever you want to call them). "
Now becomes:
"Your screenshot shows you creating a Property Box Custom Item but that only works for existing data items.
You must use Tools Fact Types and create a New custom Fact Definition for both Birth Informed and Death Informed events."

Can you see why my head nips? ;)

So, I have created a new Fact Type and I am trying to sort out the 'Sentence Template' using the '<<Insert Code' dialog. So far I have achieved another boorach and attach the screen dump of it. :oops:

I am trying to write "His/her birth was registered by 'Signature' (taken from the registration document) his/her 'Qualification' e.g. Aunt of 'Residance' (again taken from the registration document)

Should I also use the 'Witness Roles' window below and if so, what do I select?

Have I selected the correct 'tick boxes'?

Linking this little lot to AS so that AS knows 'where' to put 'what' into the FH database at present leaves me numb. So far I have put at least 8 hours into this and I apologies for frustrating you further.

Thank you for your patience.

Yours, Bill
Attachments
Birth_registration_fact_sentence1.gif
Birth_registration_fact_sentence1.gif (58.66 KiB) Viewed 14436 times
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Clearly a bit more explanation is required.

The Birth Informed/Registration fact is for adding to the Informant/Signature adult, NOT the child that was born.

So the sentence would say something like:
On 9 February 2018 John SMITH informed the Registrar of the birth of his child in London, England.
and then the Sentence Template would be like:
{date} {individual} informed the Registrar of the birth of {his/her} child {place}.

There are various ways of identifying the child, rather than the anonymous example above, but they all require manually updating the fact after using AS.
  • Stick with an Event and put the child's name in the Note field, and in the template replace {his/her} child with {note}.
  • Instead of a custom Event you could create a custom Attribute, then enter the child's name as the fact value, and in the template replace {his/her} child with {value}.
  • Stick with an Event and add the Witness Role of Child, then add the child as a Fact Witness, and in the template replace {his/her} child with {role=child}.
    The Witness Sentence Template for the Child would be {date} the birth of {role=child} was registered by {principal} {place} and the sentence would appear in the child's Facts tab and Narrative Reports.
You can leave all the Fields Required ticked.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
David2416
Superstar
Posts: 398
Joined: 12 Nov 2017 16:37
Family Historian: V7
Location: Suffolk UK

Re: Death certificate

Post by David2416 »

This discussion is interesting and instructive while showing both the strengths and issues with FH (and perhaps with other software). As a family historian I want to be conducting research, which I can record and evidence. Then to print out the results as a tree or a report showing who the players are and what their roles are, what they did, when and the evidence for the statements made. FH does allow me to do this while using an industry 'standard' data structure (gedcom). However the limitations imposed by gedcom, leads to the sort of discussion above about how to enter a death certificate. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could do the research, find the certificate enter all the data from it without having lengthy discussions about witness roles, dates, events, attributes, etc. On the other hand these discussion do contribute to the understanding of the information held in the data.
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every country drove on the left, used UK BSI plug sockets @ 250V 50Hz, and PAL televisions.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if every country (even England, Wales, Scotland & Ireland) used the same BMD Certificates.
Don't blame GEDCOM too much. It is not perfect (what is?) but does have many mechanisms that are poorly implemented.
For example, Associated Person and Fact Descriptor are hardly ever supported satisfactorily, even in FH.

Nevertheless, the complexity of Birth/Death Certificates poses some unique relationships.
Purists correctly say the actual Birth/Death Event is quite distinct and on a different Date and in a different Place from the Birth/Death Registration Event.
Thus the Informant is NOT a Witness to the Birth/Death itself (unlike a Marriage Witness).
So how do we associate the Informant with the person they registered some time after the event?

Whatever we decide, FH usually has a workable solution, and typically only needs the customisation to be established once in order to support thousands of similar data entries.

Part of the difficulty in this thread is appreciating the level of understanding of the participants.
I rashly assumed that the process of creating a custom fact was well understood, and gave no detailed instructions :oops:
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
David2416
Superstar
Posts: 398
Joined: 12 Nov 2017 16:37
Family Historian: V7
Location: Suffolk UK

Re: Death certificate

Post by David2416 »

Thank you Mike, so true. At least gedcom exists and is accessible. Deaths and the registration thereof are separate events. I like to separate them and identify the relevant individuals and their relationships. I have a death on 24, inquest and registration on 28 and burial on 31 all in December. I also have a death in June, cremation in July, registration following closing of inquest in November. Those separations tell me something about the lives and times of the families involved which is what for me separates family history from genealogy. (Sorry bit off topic, but it's why I want to record the detail accurately, and why I like the flexibility FH affords me after a learning curve.)
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Maybe how_to:recording_details_from_a_birth_certificate|> Recording from a Birth Certificate and a similar Recording from a Death Certificate need to explain the alternative ways of handling Registration and Informants as there are a growing number of options depending on the level of detail required. When I get a spare moment :lol: I'll give it some thought.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
gwilym'smum
Superstar
Posts: 302
Joined: 01 Feb 2016 16:28
Family Historian: V6.2
Location: South Cheshire
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by gwilym'smum »

This discussion just shows that you can use FH at your own level. When I started this thread I just wanted the information that A had been the person to report the death of B. Also I wanted the death cert image to appear on both person's record as that was where they were mentioned. The informant is sometimes stated to have been present at the death and in that case they are the witness also, so could in reality have 2 references to a single event. I just like to keep things simple. By keeping things simple I can follow the facts and then write the family's story filling in background from a variety of sources. In this way I can present the family in an interesting way rather than just "he was born married and died", so trying to get other members of the family interested in this addictive hobby rather than having their eyes glaze over when you mention family history. By using my FH outline I was able to present my husband and son with an 8000 word story of the Simcocks from 1735 to 1851. I had the facts and illustrations there for me in FH. The subsequent discussion is way above my head, but for those of that level is very interesting.
Thanks to Mike for all his help to both those who are very competent and those like me who only scratch the surface.
Ann
Researching Mayer, Parr/Parr, Simcock, Beech and all related families
User avatar
PeterR
Megastar
Posts: 1135
Joined: 10 Jul 2006 16:55
Family Historian: V7
Location: Northumberland, UK

Re: Death certificate

Post by PeterR »

Thus the Informant is NOT a Witness to the Birth/Death itself (unlike a Marriage Witness).
Of course I agree with the above, but there may need to be a distinction between the possibly dozens of people who witness the marriage ceremony itself, and the (usually) two Witnesses who sign the marriage register, along with the bride, the groom and the Registrar (or Church-of-England Vicar). I've attended two Roman-Catholic church weddings in France; in each case there had been a civil marriage ceremony and registration a few days before, one in London, and one in Geneva. “Horses for courses”, I guess.
Peter Richmond (researching Richmond, Bulman, Martin, Driscoll, Baxter, Hall, Dales, Tyrer)
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Without going into details, the FH Sample Project does provide various Fact Witness Roles for the Marriage Event.
This is another area where there needs to be a clear distinction between a GEDCOM/FH Fact Witness, and a real world formal Marriage Witness, and somebody who witnessed a Marriage from the congregation. The Fact Witness can have Roles that cater for all those real world 'witnesses' such as Bridesmaid, Bestman, Minister, Witness, Relative, Guest, etc.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
themoudie
Famous
Posts: 149
Joined: 30 Mar 2015 17:53
Family Historian: V7
Location: Scotland

Re: Death certificate

Post by themoudie »

Thank you Mike for your further advice and to everybody else who has chipped in their pennysworth. After my last night/early this morning session, I went to ground today and have only just turned on the 'box'! Having been for 2 long walks in the winter sunshine, frost and cold air.

I have been having another detailed read through the manual and will mull over my options. GEDCOM is definitely not as intuitive as MS ACCESS and I think that I need to resort to the old pen and paper diagram to get my head through the various stages and relationships. Understanding 'FACTS' appears to be where I need to test my options, especially as I would prefer to adopt David2416' methodology, having previously not recorded documents, images or citations and used FH to just map out a simple yet instantly recognisable family tree, with dates of birth and death and little else.

I too have deaths, industrial accident inquests, burials and memorial services, along with the associated, written findings of the inquest, newspaper articles and notices; some of which will require transcription due to their poor legability. I know FH can hold it all, but getting the 'workflow' and FH sorted to do it, is proving to be my Achilles heel.

Mike also wrote (My note):
"The Birth Informed/Registration fact is for adding to the Informant/Signature adult, NOT the child that was born. Understood
So the sentence would say something like:
On 9 February 2018 John SMITH informed the Registrar of the birth of his child in London, England.
and then the Sentence Template would be like:
{date} {individual} informed the Registrar of the birth of {his/her} child {place}. I don't understand where the software picks up the {individual} value from and suspect that I should! These are the sorts of things that frazzle me.

There are various ways of identifying the child, rather than the anonymous example above, but they all require manually updating the fact after using AS.

Stick with an Event and put the child's name in the Note field, and in the template replace {his/her} child with {note}.
Instead of a custom Event you could create a custom Attribute, then enter the child's name as the fact value, and in the template replace {his/her} child with {value}.
Stick with an Event and add the Witness Role of Child, then add the child as a Fact Witness, and in the template replace {his/her} child with {role=child}.
The Witness Sentence Template for the Child would be {date} the birth of {role=child} was registered by {principal} {place} and the sentence would appear in the child's Facts tab and Narrative Reports."

Manually updating the FH created Fact Note to read as I wish, appears to overide the strictures that FH imposes. This appears defeatest, but maybe easier than me trying to use the code wizard, whose {'sources?'} I am unsure of, and produce a sentence that is readable!

Mike, your last post, final sentence "The Fact Witness can have Roles that cater for all those real world 'witnesses' such as Bridesmaid, Bestman, Minister, Witness, Relative, Guest, etc.", caught my eye, as did that section in the manual. I will try your suggestions using the Sample Project and see if I can get my butterfly mind to settle on a consistent, timeline, methodology. ;) I'm no giving up yet.

Yours, Bill
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28344
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Death certificate

Post by tatewise »

Bill, I had not realised the minimal extent to which you have been using FH.
So you have many concepts to grasp, and it will take a while for them all to sink in.
Focus on specific elements one at a time until they are understood.
I know you are not a newcomer to FH in general, but you are a newcomer to some of its features.
So review how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers especially the Documentation & Tutorials and Sources Methods 1 & 2 and Ancestral Sources.
You may also find research:getting_started|> Getting Started with Genealogy Research useful to put those rather technical features into context, especially under Record Your Findings.

You ask where the software picks up the {individual} value in a Sentence Template.
It gets it from the Name field of the Individual record that holds the Fact.
Similarly, it derives the {his/her} value from the Sex field of that same record.
It derives the {date} and {place} and {note} values from the Date and Place and Note fields of the Fact itself.
Adding details to the Note field does not override the strictures that FH imposes.

To adopt David2416' methodology will require a sound understanding of these features, as his use of FH is quite advanced.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
LornaCraig
Megastar
Posts: 3190
Joined: 11 Jan 2005 17:36
Family Historian: V7
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: Death certificate

Post by LornaCraig »

At the risk of straying somewhat from the original question in this thread, I’d like to add a word of reassurance to those who want to record details of BMD witnesses but find it hard to get to grips with the various ways of doing it. In short: there is a simple way!

Witness roles were not introduced in FH until version 6. And the early versions of Ancestral Sources, originally known as ‘Gedcom Census’, only supported census entries. So when I first started using FH all my BMD information was entered direct into FH and I used the note field of the event to record ancillary information like marriage witnesses and death informants. In a few cases if the witness/informant was someone unexpected I created a fact in the witness’s own record but managed to do so without resorting to a custom Witness fact. For example I created a Death fact with a date of ‘after...’ to indicate that they were still alive at the time of the event they witnessed, or a Residence fact with the place/address and date shown on the certificate. In each case the certificate is cited as the source for the information.

When Witness roles were introduced I thought long and hard about starting to use them. In the end I decided against it for two reasons. Firstly, to make my record keeping consistent I would have had to go back and unpick the information I had already entered for a huge number of people, deleting some notes and creating witnesses. Secondly I realised that in many cases, particularly with marriage witnesses, it is impossible to know which, if any, of several people with the same name was the witness. For example a witness to a marriage might be Mary Smith. If I know the bride had a sister called Mary Smith it’s a fair bet she was the witness. But if she had no sister but did have two cousins and a mother all called Mary Smith, it could have been any of them. The simplest way to record this seemed to me to continue to put the information in a note to the marriage event saying “witnesses were X (probably the groom’s brother) and Y (possibly the bride’s mother, cousin 1, or cousin 2)".

AS offers customisable options to cater for as many ways of recording data as possible. But it is not necessary to use them all. You can make heavy use of the Note field and any information you record there won’t be lost and will show up in reports.
Lorna
User avatar
themoudie
Famous
Posts: 149
Joined: 30 Mar 2015 17:53
Family Historian: V7
Location: Scotland

Re: Death certificate

Post by themoudie »

Aye Lorna and Mike,

Thank you both for your continued support and advice.

Having used FH badly since ~2000 to hold basic data on 600+ individuals and to draw outline family trees; now with a mountain of paper (inhereted from family), photographs, newspaper cuttings, digital data and grey matter data, I had thought that FH, with AS to structure my data entry, would be relatively straightforward, if long winded! :oops: NOT SO!

Yes, I have read FH v5 instructions and the FH v6 book, use the Sources Method 1 and enjoy trying to fathom the data entry and what I will create, with the multiple examples in the FHUG Knowledge Base. BUT, I am spending all my time trying to create, rather than getting on with adding to and improving what I have already.

If I am to add to my current data in FH Projects it looks as though Lorna's "KISS" methodology may be the way to go. Even though it will not use the full capabilities of FH v6.2 and AS.

I will continue to read this thread and the forum, but think I should let this go at this point. A problem shared is a problem halved, but I still need to sort my own data problem. ;)

Yours, Bill
Post Reply