Data Entry - banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots GitHub Wiki

Data Entry

This page covers how to create person notes with relationship data that Charted Roots uses to generate family trees.

Reference: For a complete list of all supported properties, see the Frontmatter Reference.

Table of Contents

Create Person Modal

The Create Person Modal provides a form-based interface for creating new person notes with all essential properties pre-populated.

Opening the Modal

Method Description
Command palette Charted Roots: Create person
Dashboard Click "Create Person" tile
Control Center People tab β†’ Actions β†’ Create person
Folder context menu Right-click a people folder β†’ Create person

Features

  • Auto-generated cr_id β€” Unique identifier created automatically
  • Folder selection β€” Choose destination folder (pre-populated from folder context menu)
  • Basic fields β€” Name, nickname, sex, birth date
  • State persistence β€” If accidentally closed, your progress is saved and can be restored

"Add Another" Flow

After creating a person, you have two options:

Button Action
Create & Open Creates the person and opens the new note
Create & Add Another Creates the person and resets the form to create another in the same folder

The "Add Another" flow is useful when entering multiple family members in sequence.

Family Creation Wizard

The Family Creation Wizard is a 5-step guided workflow for creating interconnected family groups with automatic bidirectional relationship linking.

Opening the Wizard

Method Description
Command palette Charted Roots: Create family wizard
Dashboard Click "Create Family" tile
Control Center People tab β†’ Actions β†’ Create family
Folder context menu Right-click a people folder β†’ Create family

Workflow Steps

Step Name Description
Start Choose Mode Select "Start from Scratch" or "Build Around Person"
1 Central Person Create the central person (skipped in "Build Around" mode)
2 Add Spouses Add spouse(s) β€” create new or pick existing
3 Add Children Add children β€” create new or pick existing
4 Add Parents Add father and/or mother β€” create new or pick existing
5 Review Preview family tree and confirm creation

Modes

Start from Scratch

  • Create yourself first as the central person
  • Add family members around you step by step
  • All people are created fresh

Build Around Person

  • Select an existing person from your vault
  • Add family members around them
  • Mix of existing and new people

Features

  • Bidirectional linking β€” All relationships are linked in both directions automatically
  • Existing person picker β€” Select existing people instead of creating duplicates
  • Tree preview β€” Visual preview shows the family structure before creation
  • State persistence β€” Progress is saved if the wizard is accidentally closed
  • Relationship merging β€” When building around an existing person, new relationships merge with existing ones

Edit Modal Enhancements

The Edit Modal (opened by right-clicking a person note β†’ Edit) includes features for managing relationships.

Inline Person Creation

Create new people directly from relationship fields without leaving the Edit Modal:

  1. Open the Edit Modal for a person
  2. Find a relationship field (Spouse, Father, Mother, Children)
  3. Click the + button next to the field
  4. Fill in the mini-form (name, sex, birth date)
  5. Click "Create" β€” the new person is created and linked automatically

Children Management

The Edit Modal includes a dedicated Children section:

  • View existing children β€” Displayed as clickable links
  • Add child via picker β€” Click "Add existing" to select from your vault
  • Create new child β€” Click "+" to create and link a new child inline

Children are stored using two array properties:

  • child β€” Display names (wikilinks)
  • children_id β€” cr_id references for robust linking

Nickname Display

The Edit Modal header displays the person's nickname (if set) alongside their formal name, making it easy to identify people with informal names.

Alternate Name (alt_name)

For multilingual genealogy, the alt_name property displays an alternate name (e.g., native script alongside romanized form) across all views:

alt_name: εΌ δΈ‰

When set, the alternate name appears:

  • Below the main name on Family Chart View cards
  • In the Person details panel of the Family Chart
  • Below the person name in map view marker popups
  • In the Entity Profile View header
  • On visual tree chart nodes (SVG and Excalidraw export)

Quick Start: Adding Properties via Context Menu

The fastest way to set up a person note is using the context menu:

  1. Create a new markdown note for the person
  2. Right-click the file in the file explorer
  3. Select Charted Roots β†’ Add essential person properties

This automatically adds all required fields (cr_id, cr_type, name) plus common optional fields (born, died, father, mother, spouse). You can also select multiple files and add properties to all of them at once.

Tip: See Context Menus for all available right-click actions.

Individual Markdown Notes

Create individual notes for each person with YAML frontmatter containing relationship data.

Required Fields

  • cr_id: Unique identifier (UUID format recommended)
  • cr_type: Must be "person" for person notes
  • name: Person's name

Optional Relationship Fields

  • father: Wikilink to father's note
  • father_id: Father's cr_id value
  • mother: Wikilink to mother's note
  • mother_id: Mother's cr_id value
  • spouse: Wikilink(s) to spouse(s)
  • spouse_id: Spouse cr_id value(s)
  • children: Array of wikilinks to children
  • children_id: Array of children's cr_id values

Optional Date Fields

  • born: Birth date (YYYY-MM-DD format recommended)
  • died: Death date (YYYY-MM-DD format recommended)

Example Person Note

---
cr_id: abc-123-def-456
cr_type: person
name: John Robert Smith
father: "[John Smith Sr](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/John-Smith-Sr)"
father_id: xyz-789-uvw-012
mother: "[Jane Doe](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/Jane-Doe)"
mother_id: pqr-345-stu-678
spouse: ["[Mary Jones](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/Mary-Jones)"]
spouse_id: ["mno-901-jkl-234"]
children: ["[Bob Smith](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/Bob-Smith)", "[Alice Smith](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/Alice-Smith)"]
children_id: ["def-456-ghi-789", "abc-123-xyz-456"]
born: 1888-05-15
died: 1952-08-20
---

# Research Notes

[Your biographical research, sources, and notes here...]

Multiple Spouse Support

For complex marital histories, use indexed spouse properties:

---
cr_id: abc-123-def-456
cr_type: person
name: John Robert Smith

# First spouse
spouse1: "[Jane Doe](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/Jane-Doe)"
spouse1_id: "jane-cr-id-123"
spouse1_marriage_date: "1985-06-15"
spouse1_divorce_date: "1992-03-20"
spouse1_marriage_status: divorced
spouse1_marriage_location: "Boston, MA"

# Second spouse
spouse2: "[Mary Johnson](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/Mary-Johnson)"
spouse2_id: "mary-cr-id-456"
spouse2_marriage_date: "1995-08-10"
spouse2_marriage_status: current
spouse2_marriage_location: "Seattle, WA"
---

Indexed Spouse Properties

For each spouse (spouse1, spouse2, etc.), you can specify:

Property Description Example
spouseN Wikilink to spouse's note "[Jane Doe](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/Jane-Doe)"
spouseN_id Spouse's cr_id "jane-cr-id-123"
spouseN_marriage_date Wedding date "1985-06-15"
spouseN_divorce_date Divorce date (if applicable) "1992-03-20"
spouseN_marriage_status Status: current, divorced, widowed, annulled divorced
spouseN_marriage_location Wedding location "Boston, MA"

Wikilinks vs IDs

Charted Roots supports both wikilinks and ID-based relationships:

Wikilinks (father, mother, spouse, children):

  • Human-readable in your notes
  • Work with Obsidian's graph view and backlinks
  • Require exact note name matches

IDs (father_id, mother_id, spouse_id, children_id):

  • More robust - survive note renames
  • Required for GEDCOM import/export
  • Enable bidirectional sync features

Best Practice: Use both for maximum compatibility:

father: "[John Smith Sr](/banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots/wiki/John-Smith-Sr)"
father_id: xyz-789-uvw-012

Clipping from Web Sources

Capture genealogical data directly from web pages using Obsidian Web Clipper. This method is ideal for collecting data from online sources like obituaries, Find A Grave, FamilySearch, and historical archives.

Quick Overview

  1. Install Obsidian Web Clipper browser extension
  2. Configure output to your Charted Roots staging folder
  3. Create Web Clipper templates with special metadata properties
  4. Clip content from web pages
  5. Review and verify in Staging Manager (Dashboard shows "3 clips (1 new)")
  6. Promote verified data to your main tree

When to Use Web Clipper vs Other Methods

Method Best For
Web Clipper Capturing data from websites (obituaries, Find A Grave, FamilySearch)
Manual Entry Adding known family members with existing knowledge
GEDCOM Import Migrating from other genealogy software
CSV Import Structured data from spreadsheets

Benefits of the Staging Workflow

The Web Clipper integration uses Charted Roots' staging folder, which provides:

  • Review clips before adding to main tree
  • Detect potential duplicates before promotion
  • Verify LLM-extracted data for accuracy
  • Batch process multiple clips at once

Learn More

See the full Web Clipper Integration guide for:

  • Detailed setup instructions
  • Template creation tips
  • LLM extraction best practices
  • Troubleshooting common issues

Bulk Data Entry

For entering many family members at once, consider using Obsidian Bases which provides a spreadsheet-like interface for editing frontmatter across multiple notes.

Other Data Types

Charted Roots also supports Places and Organizations, each with their own data entry workflows:

Place Notes

Geographic locations for births, deaths, and other events. Place notes support:

  • Coordinates (latitude/longitude) for map visualization
  • Hierarchical relationships (parent places)
  • Categories and universes for fictional locations

See Geographic Features for complete documentation.

Organization Notes

Groups, institutions, and affiliations that people belong to. Organization notes support:

  • Organization types (guild, corporation, noble house, etc.)
  • Member relationships linking people to organizations
  • Universe support for fictional world-building

See Organization Notes for complete documentation.

Next Steps