Can't edit dates connected to Name event

[DDWGenealogy]

For a great majority of individuals in my database, the same source is applied as evidence for the person’s name as well as another life event or two. In Rootsfinder, this makes it so the dates of those other events are embedded in the Name event:

The problem this creates is if I need to edit one of those dates – e.g., I find out where he was born, or I just forgot to add the birthplace originally. If I open the birth event, it behaves the same as the name event:

There’s no way for me to get at that birth event and fix it. I have to add the new improved birth event separately, apply the sources to it all over again, then go back and delete the old one. This is really a pain. Could this be streamlined so that users can get at the dates of life events that are connected to the name event?

[DallanQ]

The “Find A Grave” evidence that you’ve listed should be of type “Burial” fact, not “Name”. (Name evidences only support names, not other types of facts.) If you click on the “Type” tab, change the type to “Burial” and add the burial date and place in the “Details” tab, everything should be fine. The “Find a Grave” evidence will show up as supporting evidence for the name, birth, and death as well as the burial event, and you’ll be able to edit the birth and death dates/places.

It looks like this evidence started out as something other than a Name type, but you changed it to a Name type later and we didn’t tell you that Name evidences aren’t designed to support other types of facts (as you saw, they show them but you can’t edit them). That’s a problem on our end. I’ll add prompting to tell people that Name evidences don’t support other fact types to the Roadmap.

[DDWGenealogy]

Okay, I did as you instructed, but it didn’t remove the Find A Grave event from the Name box in the timeline. It was still there, even though it showed as a burial event. In addition, the box for the Burial event now showed Find A Grave twice, i.e., as two repetitive evidences, since it had already been connected to the Burial event separately prior to my changing the Name evidence to a Burial evidence.

I refreshed the page, it the Find A Grave evidence was still connected to the Name event as a Burial type. So I thought “OK, just delete it from the name event.” I did so, and also deleted the associated birth and death events. So now I have to re-enter those.

I don’t know if this account of what happened is clear? I’m confused about it myself. I should have screenshotted each step of the process. If it would be helpful I can try it again on a different individual that has the same conditions existing.

[DallanQ]

RootsFinder works a bit differently from most genealogy programs. You create “supporting evidences” and list all of the facts shown on the evidence. That evidence is then attached (tagged) to all of the facts (and name) that you’ve listed on the evidence.

For example, if you have a Find a Grave record, you would create an evidence, give it a type of “Burial” (since Find a Grave records are burial records), put the burial place on the “Details” tab, and then list the person’s name, birth, and death dates as additional information about the person under the person on the “People” tab. Then that same evidence will appear as a supporting evidence under the Name, Birth, Death, and Burial facts, because it supports all of them. You enter the evidence once, and it is attached to all of the facts and name listed in the evidence. (This same thing happens for censuses for example, you create a single evidence for the census, list everyone that appeared in that census, and then that same census evidence is attached to everyone in the family.)

If you don’t want that evidence to appear as a supporting evidence for name, then you would edit the evidence and remove the name (the name that appears under the person you’ve attached the record to on the "People tab). And if you delete the evidence, it is removed from all facts (and name) that it supported.

[DDWGenealogy]

create an evidence, give it a type of “Burial” (since Find a Grave records are burial records), put the burial place on the “Details” tab, and then list the person’s name, birth, and death dates as additional information about the person under the person on the “People” tab. Then that same evidence will appear as a supporting evidence under the Name, Birth, Death, and Burial facts, because it supports all of them.

I understand how Rootsfinder’s supporting evidences structure works (it’s one of the big advantages of RF), except, it seems, with respect to Name events. So are you saying that the same citation can be applied to a Name event as well as another event (e.g., Burial), but only if I enter it as a Birth event and make the Name an additional fact to the Burial? And if I do it the other way around, it’ll make the Burial event un-editable?

[DallanQ]

Yes, that’s the way it works (unfortunately).