Person and/or family detail from Sources

[janelucas]

I'm just getting back into using Reunion after a break. I can't remember anything! Apologies if this question has been answered. I've looked around but can't be sure I am right.
So, when using a source for an individual, I often transcribe the detail and add it to their 'profile page' in the Notes field. But for a large family, this might involve copying and pasting several times over. It also sometimes makes for very long Notes, if all Census, Wills and Inventories, BMD data etc is included. Is there anywhere else to put it? What if I create a Word document and import that?
Today, transcribing a UK Census detail for a family, I wondered about putting it in the Free Form Text area in 'Sources'. Unfortunately that obviously then applies to that source for everyone, which will not be relevant. Am I correct in this? If so, what is the Free Form Text area for?

[Michael Talibard]

One of the great things about Reunion is its flexibility: different people use it in different ways—so you might not like this, but anyway… My solution to the matters you raise is that I created a new field, which I call Dates, because I put into it anything I can find a date for that isn't already covered by other fields such as Birth etc. This field is often the largest one, and when it gets full there's a slider to move up and down or you can resize your window. I attach a sample.

Sample.jpg

[janelucas]

Hi Michael, Thank you for that. Yes, I think the flexibility is what is confusing me at the moment . I don't know the program well enough. I keep thinking the manual is talking about different processes, which are in fact the same, but carried out differently!
In fact, I have just been trying something similar to you. So I've created several new person Notes, eg Census, Marriage, Wills, Probate, Newspapers/Stories etc and then I can copy and paste into the relevant Note. I think that's a good place to put detail extracted from Sources. Especially those that are difficult to read.
I can see from your family view clip that you have Census data there under your Note 'Dates'. I guess it's just finding what works best for me. I like information to be easily found, hence breaking it into Notes with an obvious title.
I'm still confused about 'Sources'. I thought I could create a Source, say 1881 Census, and cite that same source for everyone who was enumerated that year. But it appears that during the GEDCOM import everyone has a different source number for the same thing!
As my Tree is over 6000 individuals, that's a lot of sources. Hhmmm.

[Michael Talibard]

Jane—
You say: I'm still confused about 'Sources'. I thought I could create a Source, say 1881 Census, and cite that same source for everyone who was enumerated that year. But it appears that during the GEDCOM import everyone has a different source number for the same thing!
As my Tree is over 6000 individuals, that's a lot of sources. Hhmmm.

This is a key decision you should take, and people will advise you both ways. You could (a) regard the 1881 Census as a source, in which case you have to put lots of stuff in citation detail; in my view this makes for bad complications. Or you could, as I do, (b) regard each page of that census with some of your people on it as a separate source. This gives you many more sources, but I have never found any problem with that.

[janelucas]

Thanks. I did wonder.. I think that is decision made then. I imported a GEDCOM from FTM and that import has created a new source for each individual as in option (b) above. So I’m not going to change those now.
Thanks for the help
much appreciated.
Jane