I have written a program that can read a GEDCOM file and view census facts recorded in that file. This requires software that writes properly compliant GEDCOM files, which most modern programs should. Unfortunately when Tim helped in testing we discovered that GenoPro the program he uses doesn't write properly compliant GEDCOM files as it doesn't store census facts correctly only as notes. That said I've tested numerous other programs and they work.
Basically the program will display a report showing everyone in your tree who you have recorded a Lost Cousins census for. You can then check that list against your "My Ancestors" page on the main website. If you go one step further and tag those ancestors with Lost Cousins GEDCOM "EVEN" (event) tag it will then filter the list showing you only those ancestors you have that you have not yet entered. Having a program automatically scan your file and produce a printout for you of people to enter makes adding extra ancestors easy.
Note that it does this entirely on your PC there is NO upload to any website or anything like that your GEDCOM never leaves your PC so it remains entirely private.
I'd be interested to hear from others who might be interested in testing the program further. I and a small band of enthusiasts have used it myself for several years but its always good to add new features or to have others comments on what else they'd like to see the program do. You can get it completely free of charge on
CodePlex.
For some users if you don't already have certain Microsoft software installed on Windows you will need a couple of extra bits from the Microsoft website. ie: you will need
Microsoft's .Net 4 free software if you don't already have that installed and Microsoft's free
Report Viewer again if you haven't already got it installed if you want to print out the reports.
It does several other things in addition to providing Lost Cousins lists, eg:
- it can display lists of locations you've entered and who is at that location (which is also helpful for spotting typing errors and inconsistencies in how you record your locations),
- it can display lists of people you know are alive on a census but for whom you have yet to record a census fact.
- it can display lists of men likely to have fought in either world war - handy for looking up war record websites
- it can display lists of the people at the tops of your tree (Treetops report) so you can see how far back you are on every branch, this often prompts you to look again at branches you previously haven't paid that much attention to
- it can display lists of "loose deaths" ie: where you haven't narrowed down the possible dates of death. When searching records knowing the period during which someone must have died is handy to limit searches. eg: if you know a female ancestor was born in 1856 and died between 1881 and 1911 (due to finding her married in 1881 and widow in 1911), then when searching death records you can narrow searches to that period. Sometimes you record facts without noticing that it narrows the death period ie: a birth of a son for that woman happened in 1892, you know she must have been alive in 1892 and thus you can narrow the death to 1892-1911 noticing that you don't have her on the 1891 census but she must have been alive. So something else to find.
The basic idea is it can produce research lists for you to work from giving you guidance as to what you are missing. Sometimes with family history we can get bogged down in a single line or two and not notice we are missing details from siblings or other lines etc that could if researched actually prove to be the hammer that smashes through the brick wall on the main line. By using a program like this I aim to assist "Seeing the wood in your family tree". (pun on "you can't see the wood for the trees").
The more you add, the more chances you have of making a match but without matches the incentive to continue is low.
Generations has the facility to create flags for a person, so not only have I created flags to show when I've extracted someone's details from a census, but also flags to say they're on Lost Cousins.
