I want to create a new fact type, but I don’t know what to call it. An ancestor got caught stealing another man’s land by forging documents. He was tried, convicted and then the conviction was confirmed. He was 75 when he was sentenced to the penitentiary; this was February 1865; he died in June 1865. If I must have a sentence, I want to say something like: On “X day”, “Ancestor” was convicted and sentenced to “penitentiary/(or X years)” for “Forgery,” but I really don’t need one. There will be plenty of information in the note with the fact.
Sounds like things involving law (criminal/civil/etc.). Those are judgements. Maybe ‘Judicial’ or ‘Adjudicated’ or ‘Proceedings’?
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Thank you. I think i might need to differentiate between criminal and civil. A civil case does not result in being incarcerated, while a criminal case can. Maybe if I use something generic like “Court” so it can go either way - civil or criminal. I just could not think of anything.
In my opinion, it is wrong to create a new Fact type. The way you want it, it will probably never be used later. The right place for your description is probably to use one you already have, Note.
There is more than one “bad boy” in my family tree; it will probably get used more than once. I will be using the note to tell more of the story. The note doesn’t show up except as a little green check mark. I want this event to show up “front and center,” so to speak. I don’t think it really matters if I use it only once anyway.
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I have a Fact named “Court Appearance”.
[person] appeared at < [PlaceDetails]>< [Place]>< [Date]> [Desc].
I think the main reason to create a custom fact type is if it is going to be subject to focussed analysis requiring it for searches, groups, color coding, statistics, … Otherwise, Miscellaneous can be used and rhe sentence customised for each case where needed.
A second reason could be that there are specific custom roles that one wants for participants in a shared event and you don’t want other roles cluttering the choices.
I have a fact called Legal Issue which covers both civil and criminal. Some of my little thugs have multiple ‘Legal Issue’ facts. I use the description field for the issue, such as Forgery and the note for any details.
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I do much the same with my Court Appearance fact and I usually have a newspaper clipping to give all the gory details over and above the brief explanation I put in [Desc] or Note.
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I have three facts: ‘‘Court’’, ‘‘Prison’’ & ‘‘Transportation’’ which so far cover all the many misdeeds I have encountered.
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This court case carried on over 2 years. I named my fact “Judicial,” but I think I will have another go at the name. I don’t plan to document every little misdeed, but this one needs to be preserved. I doubt the developers thought that researchers would welcome a way to bring to light all the misdeeds of our ancestors - but maybe they should consider it for the future. After all, it’s real life that happened. And it’s noteworthy - especially if they managed to worm their way out of “doing time.” 
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Sometimes these misdeed are just a funny little note of kids being kids in the life of a person who overall was a widely respected person who was a pillar of the community such as a relative who was convicted of armed robbery at 17, gets out early and then convicted again for another armed robbery and then breaks out of jail-- or another that was a horse thief BUT then there are other such as Dad convicted of embezzlement when your 8 or someone steal the family’s saving and murders your dad when you are 8 (the oldest of a bunch of kids)–those are LIFE CHANGING EVENTS that can bust a family up–so yes–definitely needs to be noted…
If you wanted to have a little fun with it, you could go with Bad Boys or in my case to offset all the Ministers and Priests on the other side of family Saints and Sinners 
but seriously I was going to suggest Criminal Convictions but since some of yours wormed their way out of it-- maybe Criminal Charges…
I like to make these family stories as interesting as I can. So many of them have birth, marriage, death - and perhaps children. There had to be more to their life. When I come across something like this, I want to document it. It’s a “dark side” perhaps, but it’s still a fact to be told. I like your suggestion “Bad Boys” - I thought of that too. Even better - “Saints and Sinners.” That’s funny.
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The Ancestry Group that I facilitate has found plenty of such folks among our roots; and in fact I myself have an uncle who was a mass-murderer, died in prison during his life sentence, and was famously discovered thanks to the TV show, “America’s Most Wanted”. Can’t get much more infamous than that, and that’s just the way it goes. Folks like that are everywhere.
We have adopted the title “ANCESTORS BEHAVING BADLY” as our label for this large group, following the suggestion of author Lori Erickson in her terrific book, The Soul of the Family Tree, which I highly recommend to all of you.
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