Hello Mike. Really appreciate the follow up. Here is the issue for me: I collect every instance of personal data I can in my One-Name Study. Apart from meeting the needs of the Guild, full recording allows others to more easily check my work. For names, that’s easy enough to do within FH. Just an example: an individual named Herbert Stewart HOWES may be referred to as such or Herbert S Howes, or H S Howes, or Stewart Howes, or Herbert Stuart Howes, or Herbert Stewart HOUSE, or Herbert Stewart HOWSE, or …. You get the picture. For each of these I create a separate additional name fact and source it appropriately. FH then allows me to order the preferred name at the top. Perfect. That’s what I’d like with births and possibly other facts like marriage, residence and occupation. Now let’s look at dates, and I’ll keep it simple! An individual aged 4 in the 1851 census could have an implied year of birth of 1847. He is then reported as age 16 in 1861 from which I infer a year of birth of 1845. Subsequent census records show him as 24, 34, 44, etc all with an implied year of birth of 1847. Every time I change that individual’s record, for whatever reason, the date of birth of that person returns to 1845. That is the case even after I find out and record his actual date of birth from a birth certificate: January 3, 1847 and record a quarter of birth from the English birth registration records. The lowest year automatically finds its way to the top of the list. So, what I’d like to do for that individual, is select a particular birth fact and easily ensure that it always stays at the top, whether it’s the 1847 I inferred or the actual date where I know it. Right now, I can move one of those 1847 birth facts to the top of the list and it will stay there, as desired, UNTIL I change something else on that person’s record, like add a date of death. If I don’t pay attention (and replace the correct birth fact at the top of the list) that person’s year of birth is automatically changed, sometimes making it very difficult to find that person again in my database. A year or so isn’t so much of a problem but we all know how inaccurate some census ages can be. If I understand your suggestions properly, none of them allow me to select the correct date of birth and make that preferred in the same way that I can with a name. Indeed if I use some of them I end up with an incorrect date at the top. Hope that explains my problem. Regards and thank you again for the follow up Paul Paul Howes www.howesfamilies.com From: Beryl & Mike Tate Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎March‎ ‎19‎, ‎2014 ‎11‎:‎46‎ ‎AM To: [email protected] Paul Howes recently said: The only thing that continues to irk me is the ordering of events by date or more specifically, the inability to specify easily a preferred option, particularly for births. Without that you have to be careful every time you amend a person's record to re-order the events so that the one you want is at the top. Paul, could you be more specific, as you may be overlooking some features of FH that are designed to resolve that problem. e.g. Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence data Click on Date column heading of Property Box Facts tab Property Box Facts tab Menu > Re-order Facts by Date Tools > Work with Fact Sets > Properties > Normal Time Frame Regards, Mike Tate ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

On 19 March 2014 22:12, Paul Howes <[email protected]> wrote: > If I don't pay attention (and replace the correct birth fact at the top > of the list) that person's year of birth is automatically changed, > sometimes making it very difficult to find that person again in my > database. A year or so isn't so much of a problem but we all know how > inaccurate some census ages can be. Hi Paul, I think the Facts Tab will always show in Date order, BUT you can turn off the Automatic re-ordering of events, by turning off the setting on the Tools>Preferences General Tab, to Automatically re-order events. Another option you could use is to add a "marker" to the Descriptor value against the events (on the all tab), this could then be employed by a plugin to re-order events within a record so that the preferred event (the one with a marker) for any given type was listed first. -- Jane. Jane Taubman | www.rjt.org.uk | www.taubman.org.uk |www.fhug.org.uk