Family Book Creator Hint

I previously made a post regarding the inclusion of a typed copy of a person's obituary within the context of their death fact. My intention was for this obituary to appear as a distinct paragraph. However, I encountered challenges as the obituary did not consistently print separately. Sometimes it would start right after the death date, and the burial information to appear as a new sentence following the obituary.

The manual stated that by default, leading and trailing blank lines are removed from the note, rendering the extra effort of inserting a blank beginning and ending line was futile. The Family Book Creator manual features a section on note formatting. In this context, the Label field could serve as a mere descriptor. For instance, with a Person Note, the label could read "Person Notes:", and the note would follow immediately. Alternatively, in my case, I could label it as "Obituary:".

Regrettably, this approach did not yield the desired outcome. My aim is for the obituary to be presented as a new paragraph. Furthermore, the word "Obituary" is sometimes used within my death notes, potentially leading to confusion. Moreover, the issue of the burial fact immediately following the obituary persists.

In my exploration of the Family Book Creator manual, I discovered support for special text formatting tags, along with the use of the "<Text>" placeholder to indicate the actual text and its desired formatting. Examining these special tags, I speculated that a line break or new paragraph tag might be effective. My initial attempt involved "<br><Text><br>", which achieved a line break. 

Yet, my preference was for a blank line, leading me to experiment with "<p><Text></p>" for a new paragraph.

This time, the results were considerably more satisfactory. To further emphasize the obituary's distinction, I even tried "<p>----------<br><Text><br>----------</p>". 

One final point to consider in this matter pertains to the modification of the Death fact note label in the four sections of the book, as outlined in the "Items to Include" section. This modification applies not only to the Primary person but also to their partner. The situation becomes more nuanced when dealing with children listed in the family section. For those children with their own dedicated section, I omitted the death fact note entirely. This is because their section adheres to the settings of the Primary person. Conversely, children without a distinct section necessitate proper formatting of their death fact since they lack another section for their information.

I recommend conducting experimentation with your settings on a subset of data to gauge the resulting outcomes. It was not immediately apparent to me what this manual page entailed, as it lacked illustrative examples. My insight into note formatting was gleaned from a Facebook Group post by fellow users of the Family Book Creator.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Harness the potential of Ancestry's records

Have you been fully harnessing the potential of Ancestry's vast records? Are you taking the time to explore each facet of the available information within those records? Consider this: when there are multiple clickable names associated with a single record, it's often a good idea to investigate all of them. Let me illustrate with an example. During my research on Henry Erbrecht and his wife Louisa Quasius, an Ancestry hint directed me to a marriage record for their child, Edmund. Despite some spelling errors, I was confident that these were indeed the individuals I was seeking.

Upon examining this record, I found it to be a treasure trove of valuable information. It included essential details such as the groom's and bride's names, the date and location of the marriage, and an added bonus: the names of the groom's parents. Yet, the real revelation came when I ventured further. Clicking on the bride's name led me to an alteration in the information displayed, now revealing the identity of the bride's parents.

A curious pattern emerged when I scrutinized both the groom's and bride's perspectives. Notably, the mothers' names were presented as their married surnames. Intrigued by this inconsistency, I probed deeper by clicking on the mothers' names, which brought about another layer of transformation. To my delight, the groom's mother's maiden name, Sessions, was disclosed, as well as the bride's mother's maiden name, Leber.

Although Sessions appeared to deviate from Quasius, I entertained the possibility of obscured handwriting or transcription errors. Driven by this hypothesis, I referred to a FamilySearch Record linked on Ancestry. Here, I confirmed that Edmund's mother was indeed listed as Louisa Quasius. Moreover, the record pinpointed their origin as Tigerton, Wisconsin—an alignment with my existing knowledge about the family.

Intriguingly, my pursuit of knowledge didn't cease with the mothers' names. I delved into the fathers' names on both sides, only to find that the perspective shifted again. However, disappointingly, no fresh insights emerged from this particular angle of investigation. 

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!