Undocumented Fact Report Management

I understand that many users don't care about Sources and Citations. Over the years, I have learned how important they are. I have also learned how to manage that issue. I want ALL Facts with a Citation, even those Facts that I create and the I use for my purposes to maintain the file.

Working with two (2) new files, in the past three years, I learned to run the Undocumented Fact Report Daily. By doing so, and I can keep this issue under control. That is FIX the issue, based on the work that I did that day.

I took those two files and merged them into my Master database. That experience is a whole other topic. Because for the past two or three years I was in the habit of running the Undocumented Fact Report I ran it for the first time in my Master database. What I ended up with was a 169 PAGE Report. Shocked, to say the least.

To run this report, go to the Publish Workspace, select the Source Report in the Collection Tab, select Undocumented Facts, then Create Report.

When the "Create Report" button is selected, I want to make sure ALL Individuals are included.

Then I realized one problem that really brought the importance of this report. A change, many versions ago, about the "Sex" Fact had been changed requiring a Citation. Many Records either state that as a fact or can infer that fact, and should be documented. Family Names / Given Names are not always obvious. So we were given the Citation field for that Fact.

That second image is the clue /  reminder to me as to why there were so many pages of Undocumented Facts. I have some clean up work to do. I had to develop a Plan to deal with all of these Undocumented Facts. What I was NOT going to do, is clean them all up right now.

As you may know, we can Edit the Profile, from the Report, by double clicking on the Name (that is bolded) and the Person View will appear.

The Sex Fact does not have a Citation, but the Name Fact does have a citation, This is a quick and easy way to resolve this problem, Copy the Citation from the Name Fact, and Paste Link to Source Citation. The Copy source citation is the ICON to the Right of the "New" and left of the Edit (Pencil) ICON. That is the Family Tree Maker Clipboard (not Windows Clipboard)

Then select the "Sex" Fact, and Past Link to Source Citation.

That process will take care of those Facts that did not require a citation from previous versions. Easy but time consuming and needs to be done.

BUT, the next profile had other Facts that did not have Citations. From my analysis since I started this clean up project, over the many versions of Family Tree Maker, some Citations were lost and / or unlinked from Facts. So I needed a PLAN.

My plan is to use the Filter Feature to help me manage those profiles that have one or many Facts without a Citation. To do that, I created a "No Documentation" Fact. That way, I can Filter In or Filter Out, anyone with the No Documentation Fact. The name of the fact is not important, that was just the one I chose.

Keeping in the Undocumented Fact Report, I would ADD that Fact to every person in that report AND put a Citation on that Fact. Here is my citation (Reference Note)

Worthington, Russ, [ ADDRESS FOR PERSONAL USE, ], File Citations; This is a "No Documentation" citation, where there are no citations on Facts.

As I started to go through this process, three things were seen.

1. No Citations on any Facts in that profile
2. Only ONE Fact without a Citation
3. A number of Facts without a Citation

Number 1 was may be a large problem, as there is not clue, on that screen to tell me where that information came from. More time involved, but in the People Workspace, Person View, looking at other information, especially a spouse, parents, or children. Clearly not in the report.

It became clear, that this phase of the project is to Mark All Profiles with a Citation issue. 

Number 2 and 3 are a little easier, in that I have at least ONE Citation on other Facts. I can review those citations to see if that record addresses the Fact(s) that are not documented. The Only one fact, should be an easy fix.

This is time consuming, but here is where the Filter In / Filter Out feature comes in very handy.

Lets say I added the No Documentation Fact to the First Page in the Report. I can now go back to the "Individuals to Include". Select ALL, Filter OUT, select the "No Documentation Fact", Any Data, and those profiles with that Fact will be removed from the report.

For me, this does a couple of things, Lets me focus on the easy fixes, or the ones that will take more time, and I can resolve that one fact that doesn't have the citation from previous versions of the program.

In looking at the Undocumented Fact Report, it became obvious which Profiles had that one fact, not documented. It included on the Name and the Fact.

I can fix them right then and there, as noted above.

Once all of the Undocumented Facts are identified what the No Documentation Fact, I can then get back to research and when I come across a Profile with that FACT, I can deal that that undocumented fact then, because I can see it in the List of Facts.

I marked the No Documentation Fact as Private, so only I can see it. In this example, I do not know the persons Name, (5 underscores), but when I look at the full profile, I see that this is a Spouse of someone in my database. I can look at the Citations for the Spouse, to pick up the Citation for this person, that has NO Citations on either Fact.

The No Documentation in the Fact Description field, may be an easy fix, or may be  not so easy.

My goal is to KNOW who has one or more Facts that are not documented. Using the Filter In / Filter Out feature, and get that Undocumented Fact report to Zero, then I can go back to my research. AND I can also go to the People Workspace, and use the Filter In Feature, to Filter IN all who have the No Documentation Fact, and further include, if I want, the No Documentation, Undocumented Fact, or Undocumented Facts in the description.

NOW, once I have all of the Facts documented in the Profile, I can DELETE that No Documentation Fact from that Profile. Now running the Undocumented Fact Report is important to be run frequently, with the goal of No / Zero profiles on that report (again, filtering out the No Documentation Fact).

Lesson Leaned: Run the Undocumented Fact Report daily
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Copyright © 2019 by Cousin Russ