Property Box

Property Box: Main Tab for Source Records

This tab can be customized using the Customize Property Box dialog. It displays the most important items of information relating to a Source record.

When accumulating genealogical data, it is a very good idea to document not just the information you accumulate, but also where the information came from - i.e. your sources. A source can be whatever you choose to consider the source of your information is. A typical example of a source would be a birth, death or marriage certificate, or a census record. But equally a source could be a person, or perhaps one particular interview with a person. It could also be a book, a document, a part of a document, a graveyard (perhaps, even, a single grave in a graveyard), or even another GEDCOM file (which might or might not have been created by Family Historian).

Two Layouts

There are two variant layouts of the Main tab for Source records.  One layout is used for generic Source records.  Another layout is used for templated Source records.  To learn more about the difference between these, please see Sources and Source Templates.

To customize the Main tab of the Property Box, click on Customize Property Box on the dropdown menu that appears when you click on the cog button  on the Property Box toolbar.  When you do this, the Customize Property Box dialog opens.  Make sure that the Record Type field is set to 'Source'.  Now check the Tab field.  There should be at least two fields:

Select the first to customize the dialog for generic Source records.  Select the second to customize the dialog for templated Source records.

Source Records and The Citation Window

You may notice that when the Property Box is used to display a Source record, it looks very similar to the Citation Window.  Both of them have very similar Text from Source, Notes and Media tabs. The layout of the first tab is similar too, in each case.  This is because both the Property Box and the Citation Window are used for looking at Source record fields.  However, there is an important difference.  When you view a Source record in the Property Box, that's all you are viewing.  The Citation Window however is used to view all the details relating to a source citation, which means both Source record details and citation-specific details .  Also the Citation Window can be used not just for an actual citation, but also for a prepared citation - which is similar to an ordinary citation but not quite the same.

If you customize the Property Box for a Source record, your customizations will apply to the Citation Window too, and vice versa.  The only difference is that the "Citation Details" which are listed in the Customization Window, are ignored when the Source record is displayed in the Property Box.  "Citation Details" fields are only relevant to the Citation Window.

To learn more, see the Citation Window.