FTAnalyzer questions.

[Gillian]

I need to add more test cases to the test class to pickup these sorts of things. Thanks for the report Gillian a new version 5.0.3.1 should be available for you now.

Thank you, Alexander. I've now downloaded version 5.0.3.2 and into that a new Gedcom. My grandfather is fine now, that is, his census ref is no longer unknown. HOWEVER, another relative, with an equally correct census ref, though not the Lost Cousins ref, also has the Unknown Census Ref., yet the ref. follows immediately. The person in question is no. 720 Thomas Gambier Parry. I checked the ref and it is correct.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I don't understand this from your post. My CENS records are created by my software from the data that I have entered, whether that be for England and Wales or for some other country. When I say that I have added a CENS record, I mean that I have entered the data from which the software will create a CENS record when writing the Gedcom file.

What I was getting at is that if the software already creates a CENS record then the actual reference could be blank and FTAnalyzer wouldn't care (other than reporting missing references). The main reason people should care about unrecognised or missing references is when they are relying on FTAnalyzer to create a census record purely from recognising the content of the notes.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Thank you, Alexander. I've now downloaded version 5.0.3.2 and into that a new Gedcom. My grandfather is fine now, that is, his census ref is no longer unknown. HOWEVER, another relative, with an equally correct census ref, though not the Lost Cousins ref, also has the Unknown Census Ref., yet the ref. follows immediately. The person in question is no. 720 Thomas Gambier Parry. I checked the ref and it is correct. View attachment 811

Certainly looks right. I'll investigate.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Yup I've entered that as test data and it recognises it so I'm guessing its something in the way the GEDCOM is formatted. Could you email me the GEDCOM of this single individual please so I can check why its not recognising.

 

[Gillian]

I've sent you the GEDCOM privately, Alexander.

 

[Bryman]

What I was getting at is that if the software already creates a CENS record then the actual reference could be blank and FTAnalyzer wouldn't care (other than reporting missing references). The main reason people should care about unrecognised or missing references is when they are relying on FTAnalyzer to create a census record purely from recognising the content of the notes.

Thanks Alexander, I think that I follow that now. My software will only write CENS records if the data meets certain criteria, such as . . .
Source Title/Name defined, eg RG11/123/45/6
Source Type defined as Census
Date of Census entered, eg 03/04/1881 but then software changes month to APR
Citation Reference supplied (may be different format to Title), eg Piece: 123, Folio: 45; Page: 6;
Address supplied, to which I try and ensure that country is included.

Hence, the new feature added to FTA is a great help to enable early checking before all details have been entered in the appropriate fields using the applicable formats. I am now using V5.0.4.0.

The test Gedcom file that I sent you was a cut-down version of one surname tree (I have about 250) but the full surname tree produced the following stats when loaded into FTA . . .

Direct Ancestors : 1
Blood Relations : 42
Married to Blood or Direct Relation : 23
Related by Marriage : 115
Unknown relation : 5

Found 5 census facts in GEDCOM File (5 good, 5 usable facts loaded)
Created 132 census facts from individuals notes and source references in GEDCOM File
Found 33 residence facts in GEDCOM File (0 treated as census facts)
Found 137 census references in file and 0 facts missing a census reference
Found 84 Lost Cousins facts in GEDCOM File (84 good, 84 usable facts loaded)

With 132 census facts created by FTA, that is a great help. Thank you. Eventually, I hope to get them all properly entered and reduce the number created by FTA to zero. It all comes down what is more important(/interesting) - search for further ancestors or tidy up those already identified. FTA helps me to 'put off' the housekeeping but still give me a repeated nudge that work still needs to be done. Thank you.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

On the census tab you should also find two export routines to export missing or unrecognised census refs. These will produce lists of possible references or data it failed to identify a reference from. If there are obviously decent references there that it failed to find if you can let me know and I can try to add support for them too.

 

[Bryman]

Thank you Alexander but both "Missing Census Refs" and "Unrecognised Census Refs" reports are blank (this time).

However, the Colour Census Report shows that several individuals have LC with missing census facts (Orange), where the Gedcom contains
1 NOTE 1881 census - District 159/A/4, Page 6, Family 31 - living at Brantford (City), Brant South, Ontario, Canada.

but elsewhere,
1 NOTE 1881 census - District 158/E, Page 16, Family 74 - living at Simcoe, Norfolk North, Ontario, Canada.
seems to be accepted for census fact creation. Both records were copied from the Gedcom file.

Am I missing something obvious? I will have another look in the morning, if not dragged away.

 

[Tim]

Thank you Alexander but both "Missing Census Refs" and "Unrecognised Census Refs" reports are blank (this time).

However, the Colour Census Report shows that several individuals have LC with missing census facts (Orange), where the Gedcom contains
1 NOTE 1881 census - District 159/A/4, Page 6, Family 31 - living at Brantford (City), Brant South, Ontario, Canada.

but elsewhere,
1 NOTE 1881 census - District 158/E, Page 16, Family 74 - living at Simcoe, Norfolk North, Ontario, Canada.
seems to be accepted for census fact creation. Both records were copied from the Gedcom file.

Am I missing something obvious? I will have another look in the morning, if not dragged away.

You have an extra /4 in the first line?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Hmm the /4 is Division. Clearly the code isn't noticing that. I'll investigate.

 

[jorghes]

I was just wondering if there were any plans to release a Mac version of FTA - I have access to a PC, but my primary technology is a Mac, and it is difficult to use FTA to it's full potential when you continually have to shift documents onto the PC to analyse and then have to pick which pieces of the analysis to save to transfer back again! (All my genealogical software and stuff is on my Mac).

 

[Tim]

I was just wondering if there were any plans to release a Mac version of FTA - I have access to a PC, but my primary technology is a Mac, and it is difficult to use FTA to it's full potential when you continually have to shift documents onto the PC to analyse and then have to pick which pieces of the analysis to save to transfer back again! (All my genealogical software and stuff is on my Mac).

I've started a discussion here that hopefully will be of some help.

 

[LynneB]

This thread is long and I can't find a simple answer to my question so I'll just go ahead and ask it; hope that's okay.

I am using FTM 2010 and have created an individual fact called "Lost Cousins" which I keep on the front (family) page along with BDM and AFN. Reading through this thread, I see that I should probably be using the inbuilt Census fact. I am upgrading to FTM 2014 in July (after we return from holidays) and will then download FTA. While I still have a relatively small number of entries in my LC facts, should I convert them to Census facts in order to use FTA efficiently? (I learnt how to do this three days ago and I've been using FTM since, well, 2010!)

 

[Tim]

Hi Lynne, creating a custom fact is exactly the correct thing to do. And I also keep it on the front page along with the other custom fact "Children Status" which is a shared fact that I also use for FTAnalyzer. I think the discussion on Census Facts is to do with the issue that some people don't create Census Facts.

FTA uses Census Facts and the custom Lost Cousins fact to determine whether you have entered that person on the Lost Cousins website.

 

[LynneB]

I think the discussion on Census Facts is to do with the issue that some people don't create Census Facts.

FTA uses Census Facts and the custom Lost Cousins fact to determine whether you have entered that person on the Lost Cousins website.

I don't create Census facts; I create Residence facts. FTM 2010 automatically creates the facts as residence facts so I have followed that lead. Why would one use Census over Residence (or vice versa)?

Also, I have created another shared fact called "Residence Shared" so that couple share the same address information under their marriage information. I have then deleted their individual facts.

Funnily enough, although I have been using FTM 2010 for nearly five years, I have become aware of some of its features only this past week -- like the use of the F1, F2 and F3 buttons and the little icons above the person's name on the right side of Family view! That's what comes of learning to use software by using it and not reading the user's manual!

In my custom Lost Cousin facts, I put description only (no date or place) and simply type the dates (1841, 1881, 1911) as appropriate. Is that the idea?

 

[Tim]

Hi Lynne,

Yes, FTM creates Residence facts, which FTA treats the same as Census facts. I do find it slightly annoying that FTM creates a Residence fact when quite clearly it can see that it is actually a Census fact!

Not sure why you create a "Residence Shared" fact, as the address is saved as part of the shared marriage fact. However that is the marriage address so do you mean their private address? Which could be different?

Shortcuts...Aren't they great? But we covered that in another discussion

In the Lost Cousin fact, I just add the date e.g. 1881 into the date field. Here is my Lost Cousin Fact Properties box, you can see I've selected the type Date/Place.



Selecting Date/Place then shows me this screen, which I then only add 1881 to the date field.

 

[Norman]

Hi Lynne,

Yes, FTM creates Residence facts, which FTA treats the same as Census facts. I do find it slightly annoying that FTM creates a Residence fact when quite clearly it can see that it is actually a Census fact!

I imagine that FTM is recording the census as the source of residence information on a particular date.

 

[LynneB]

Hi Lynne,
Not sure why you create a "Residence Shared" fact, as the address is saved as part of the shared marriage fact.

It doesn't do that in FTM 2010 (unless I'm doing something wrong). It adds the residence fact to the individual's facts which I find frustrating since they are clearly living together! Here is an example of an ancestor for whom I haven't yet created a "residence shared" fact. You can see he's been married for two census, but both facts appear in the individual area.


So I created "residence shared" so that it would be listed under the marriage fact. Here is the relative I am working on at the moment.


Does this change with FTM 2014? Am I now setting myself up for trouble when I upgrade next month?

 

[LynneB]

Hi Lynne,
In the Lost Cousin fact, I just add the date e.g. 1881 into the date field. Here is my Lost Cousin Fact Properties box, you can see I've selected the type Date/Place.

View attachment 855

Selecting Date/Place then shows me this screen, which I then only add 1881 to the date field.

View attachment 856 View attachment 857

What happens when a relative appears on more than one relevant census? Do you add a second Lost Cousin Fact? I use "description" so I can record two or more censuses without FTM getting over-excited!



I assume that since you do it by date, that's how it works with FTA?

 

[Norman]

Residence facts should, in my opinion, be individual's facts, not shared. Using FTM or ancestry when adding the census to an individual you are able to add the residence fact to all the individuals in your tree that are on that census. It may be that the spouse was not at home on the night of the census so was not recorded or was recorded elsewhere.