Introduction

Some people who upgrade to Family Historian 7 to take advantage of some of its new features (such as formatted text) will prefer to continue using Generic SourcesFamily Historian 7 introduced the concept of 'Templated Sources' and renamed Version 6 (totally Gedcom compliant) sources as 'Generic Sources'.   rather than adopting Templated SourcesFamily Historian Version 7 introduced the ability to define sources using 'Source Templates' to aid precision and consistency in entering source-identifying information.  , perhaps to maintain consistency with data previously entered, or because they do not want to learn a new way of working, or because they don’t feel the effort involved in changing existing sources is justified, or they worry that exporting their data to other product will become more difficult.

Newcomers to ƒh may also choose to work only with Generic Sources for simplicity or to ease exporting data to other products.

Whatever the reason(s) for not adopting Templated Sources, here is some guidance on configuring ƒh7 to look and behave as closely as possible to ƒh6 when working with Generic Sources.

Source Property Box and Citation Window

The Main tab of the Source Property Box can be customised to look as far as possible like the Property Box in ƒh6 :

• Open the Property Box for a Generic Source
• Click the Cog menu button and select Customise Property Box…
• Make sure the Tab field is set to Main (generic)
• Locate Text from Source in the list of available items in the left hand pane and move it to the right hand pane using the button.
• Adjust its position using the buttons to place it under the Repository field.
• With the Text from Source item selected, select View/Edit.
• Set Height to Variable and adjust Weight to reflect the share of the vertical space you want this item to occupy.
• Click OK
• Click <Custom Item> in the left hand pane.
• Set Item Name to Note.
• Tick Part 1
• Set Label to Note:
• Set Data Reference to %SOUR.NOTE2[1]%.
• Adjust its position using the buttons to place it under the Text from Source field.
• With the Note item selected, select View/Edit.
• Set Height to Variable and adjust Weight to reflect the share of the vertical space you want this item to occupy.
• Click OK.
• Click OK again.

Following these instructions will also customise the Citation Window.

It is not possible to hide the separate tabs for Text from Source or Notes.

Records Window

You can hide references to Template in the Source RecordsSource: "where information was found". This could be anything from an archive in a county records office, a book, or even a relative's recorded recollection. Citing your Sources helps to show how you reached a particular conclusion about an Individual. Window as follows:

• Open the Source Records Window via View > Other Records Lists> Sources
• Right click on any column heading and select Configure Columns
• Locate Template in the right hand pane and move it to the left hand pane using the button.
• If you wish, select Generic Type in the right hand pane, click the Edit button and change the Heading to Type and click OK.
• Click OK.

Bibliography and Footnotes

ƒh7 has introduced Footnote and Bibliography entries for both Generic and Templated Sources, which can be included in Reports or used to display source information e.g. when viewing the citations for a fact.

In ƒh6 there was no option to customise how sources were displayed in (e.g.) the Source Pane; however, you could (to some extend) customise how they appeared in Reports via Report Options.

In ƒh7, you can customise how Generic Source Titles, Footnotes and Bibliographies are constructed and formatted, via Tools > Preferences.

• On the Sources tab itself, you can customise the style for the Source Title: See Preferences Dialog: Sources for Help.
• Click Generic Source Formats to customise the content of Footnotes, Short Footnotes and Bibliography entries. See Generic Source Formats Dialog for Help.
• In the Generic Source Formats dialog, you can also View Format to see the template for the presentation in question, or Customize to edit the presentation.

There is no way to vary the display according to the Source Type: ‘one size fits all’.

Once you have formatted the elements you intend to use, you can:

1. Choose what is displayed in the Citation List Pane, by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the Source Pane and choosing Display Citation As >
2. When viewing a Report, select Options…and then the Sources tab to configure whether and how the elements you customised above are displayed. See Report Options Dialog: Sources Tab in the help file.

Note: If you want to include Text from SourceBoth Source records and Citations have a Text From Source field intended to hold transcripts of source documents. and/or NotesFamily Historian version 6 and below supports two types of Notes: Local notes (associated with a single person, record, or fact); and Note Records (sometimes called Shared Notes), that can be linked to multiple records and/or facts. Version 7 introduced in Footnotes, it is best to append them using the Report Options, otherwise they will be truncated.