I am wondering if there is a way to write one Note and share it with multiple people, if so how do I go about it?
Let me explain what I am trying to do…
When I enter an Occupation fact eg “Coal Miner (Hewer)” I also want to add a note explaining what that occupation actually involved. Now I can put that in the Note field of the Occupation, but I have a lot of people with the same Occupation and don’t want to write this out multiple times. I want something like when I set up a Source I can attach that to multiple Facts and Individuals without having to enter it every time.
Is this possible?
If not … any chance of adding this as a feature in future versions? I’m sure lots of people would find this very useful.
You don’t need to write it every time. Once written, make the text blue, use Ctrl and C. Then the computer remembers the text. At a new note use Ctrl and V and there is the same text.
Another option would be to create a new fact type like “Note-Miner” and then include custom text about coal miners in the sentence template. Then for everyone who you want to include, simply include that fact. Not ideal but it should work with reports.
If you simply want to make a shared note available on-screen - rather than making it print in lots of different people’s Narrative Reports - then I think you can achieve what you want.
Add your Note to the original person’s Occupation fact and then share that fact with other people as required. Do this using RM’s “share fact” functionality, this lets you assign a ‘witness’ role to other people. If you then go to the edit screen for any of these witnesses and select the ‘Witness-Occupation’ fact (which RM has automatically created for you) you’ll see the original person’s Occupation fact - including your Note. Here’s the clever bit . If you subsequently want to update your Note you can do so from either the original person’s edit screen or from any of the witnesses. Save your changes and it will update for everyone.
All the above works for me using RM9 UK version on Windows 11, but please test it out and make sure it works for you. As I say, this is an on-screen solution - it will print only in the orginal person’s Narrative Report. .
Hi Steve, thanks for that idea, I don’t think that would do what I want because the fact that I would be sharing would be unique to one person ie date, location, occupation and only the note - a generic description that would make sense to share.
What I think is really needed (and is not available at present) is to be able to create a Note (just like a Source or Media and then to be able to link that to multiple individuals.
Why not do it as a Source Citation using the Free Form type? I don’t see why the explanation need be in the body of the report. You can write an arbitrary sentence or short paragraph in the Footnote field. The result is a footnote that can show in the narrative and in tabular reports such as the Individual Summary and Family Group Sheet. The downside is the hardcoded punctuation. An alternative would be a template designed for plain footnotes over which you control the punctuation. My custom MyFreeForm3 template should work and @thejerrybryan likely has a solution to suggest.
Actually @ Dark-Moon , OleSeminole idea of a customized fact should work— as an example my 5th g-grandfather was a lighterman and a waterman before 1800 in England–not knowing any better, I thought that one job was a man who delivered water and the other was the guy who lite the street lamps until my niece asked-- ended up with a page and a half of notes on the 2 occupations and how one became a lighterman/ waterman…
So I can create a customized fact and enter as much or as little of the info in the fact sentence as I want—
the short version for my fact sentence would be:
[date] [person] was [Desc:A]< [PlaceDetails]>< [Place]>. A Waterman transports people across the rivers where as a Lighterman transports goods across the
rivers --guess you could say the medieval equivalent of taxi drivers and truckers.
In a narrative report it reads like this:
From 5 Jan 1790 to 5 Jan 1797 Thomas Moore was an Apprentice Waterman at Port of London in London England. A Waterman transports people across the rivers where as a Lighterman transports goods across the rivers --guess you could say the medieval equivalent of taxi drivers and truckers.
But if I wanted to change it later or add more abt a person in this job such as they had to work 7 years as an apprentice , had to be very knowledgeable abt river currents and tides as well as had to be very strong-- I could change it in the sentence fact on the main fact and it would update all facts… and the great thing is you can add a little or a lot of info— just a thought
Hi Tom, that might work, maybe I’m getting too hung up on it being in the Notes field. I think the other issue I had/have is that I only really wanted one source associated with the Occupation fact, but maybe that’s something I need to get over.
Hi Nancy, I can see where you are coming from, but I don’t think I want a non-standard fact type,in my case I want to use the Occupation fact and just somehow link it to a set of notes? that I have already written and can be linked to multiple individuals via an Occupation fact.
Here is an example based on Nancy’s data using a lumped source called “Occupation” and two Citations, respectively named “Waterman” and “Lighterman”. The only fields are named “Footnote” and “ShortFootnote” but you could add “Bibliography” if you want.
