# How to record people who are a witness to an events? **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [May 8, 2026, 6:13pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-people-who-are-a-witness-to-an-events/9467 "2026-05-08T18:13:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dbyy](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/dbyy/32/8400_2.png) [@dbyy](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/dbyy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 6:13pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-people-who-are-a-witness-to-an-events/9467/1 "2026-05-08T18:13:08Z")
Hello, I’m just curious, how are you handling people who are witnesses to an event (i.e. marriage, christening)? Are you creating them in the “people section” or just adding them to the specific event, > Person - Event (ie. marriage) - Attribute Add(+) - Attribute-Type : Witness ? I imagine depending on the selected approach it has different impact on the system (reports). I appreciate any suggestion. TIA Gramps v. 6.0.7 (flatpak) on Linux Mint ---
**Author:** ![comeng](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/2acd7d/32.png) [@comeng](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/comeng)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 6:55pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-people-who-are-a-witness-to-an-events/9467/2 "2026-05-08T18:55:35Z")
Have you looked at how the Forms Add on deals with this to give an example Generally you have to create a person to attach as a witness this gives rise to a lot of detached people. I tend to to Create an Attribute and store them as text. I also added a Notes column on the Forms Census to allow noting lodgers, boarders and other waif’s and strays who have no family links phil ---
**Author:** ![pgerlier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/41988e/32.png) [@pgerlier](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/pgerlier)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 8:25pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-people-who-are-a-witness-to-an-events/9467/3 "2026-05-08T20:25:12Z")
My events are always described in a Note attached to the Event record. Consider this is summary, equivalent to a copy of the original evidence (I don’t store screenshots of parish records because of the disk size required). Witnesses are mentioned in this summary. **If** witnesses are persons already in my tree (and are thus relatives of the main participant(s)), I drag’n’drop the Event record over these persons and set the role as witness, informant, … As @comeng says, I could also systematically create a Person record for all witnesses but this would end up in many “detached” persons. Presently, there is no tool to enumerate the non-connected components in the graph (sometimes called “islands”). This makes difficult to identify these “isolated” individuals or groups. ---
**Author:** ![StoltHD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/db5fbb/32.png) [@StoltHD](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/StoltHD)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 8:32pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-people-who-are-a-witness-to-an-events/9467/4 "2026-05-08T20:32:43Z")
Shared Event, add the people with a role/custom role of Witness… ---
**Author:** ![drjimbo](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/drjimbo/32/3930_2.png) [@drjimbo](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/drjimbo)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2026, 5:42pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-people-who-are-a-witness-to-an-events/9467/5 "2026-05-09T17:42:13Z")
Associating witnesses with an event is readily accomplished through the use of the Forms addon as noted by @comeng. I don’t think that creating (possible) unlinked person records is a draw back because there may not be any _a priori_ evidence of a relationship. That’s the nature of research. It will be easier to search through person records for a named individual than notes attached to events. As for reporting individuals sharing specific events, that appears to be limited as standard reports tend to focus on individuals with a primary role in any event. The only support I’ve found is a modified version of the DynamicWeb report (DynamicWebB), which is not part of the standard GRAMPS release. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/1X/2ac1e712b7adf612e31ca08a55419f4cf37c0158.png) [@system](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2026, 5:42pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-people-who-are-a-witness-to-an-events/9467/6 "2026-06-08T17:42:28Z")
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