• Only registered members can see all the forums - if you've received an invitation to join (it'll be on your My Summary page) please register NOW!

  • If you're looking for the LostCousins site please click the logo in the top left corner - these forums are for existing LostCousins members only.
  • This is the LostCousins Forum. If you were looking for the LostCousins website simply click the logo at the top left.
  • It's easier than ever before to check your entries from the 1881 Census - more details here

Displaying Data Errors

Alexander Bisset

Alexander Bisset

Administrator
Staff member
Heather said:
I have had many a giggle at the info some people do add to their trees which could not possibly be correct eg men who have been dead for 20 years being the father of a child just born or girls giving birth when they are only 4 years old etc.
Click to expand...


I was just wondering if adding a data errors report to my FTAnalyzer program would be useful? ie: a report that looked at the data in your tree and listed say all parents who had children when either parent was less than say 13? Or mothers who had a child after say 60? Or people who get married or have children after they are dead (more than 9 months after in case of a father)? Or die before they are born? Or die aged over 110?

What other sorts of data errors might be useful to display?
 
I'd be quite interested to see a list of people with missing census entries.

e.g. person A born 1825, has a census entered for 1841, 1861, 1871 and died in 1875

so the report would say, Person A missing census 1851

As more corrections get made and the quality of FmP and Ancestry gets better, it would be good to revisit them and see if they can now be found.
 
The program sort of does this already by listing people not found on a specific census. I approached it from a census direction as I felt it was more likely someone would be looking through a specific census collection rather than dotting from one census year to another. However this is perhaps less true now most census is done online vs microfiche.

I was thinking more of a report of actual errors in your data rather than missing data. An error eg: someone dead before they are born needs fixed. Missing data might be because you can't find it thus can't fix it.
 
Any of the data queries you mentioned would be a help. If you think a query is useful then so will we.
I do intend to use your current census sheets when I get some time.
 
Doesn't your family history program give these sort of data checks? Legacy Family Tree does. Potential Problems Report.
 
It probably does - but you know what it like you forget what it can do.

For me one of the great things about Alexander's program is that I can easily extract any of the results lists to Excel.
As I spend a great deal of my working day in Excel extrating and manipulating data it is my tool of choice for many things
 
That's great. You can export result list stuff to Excel from Legacy as well (csv from the Name List/Search List print) but if Alexander's program is easier to use that's good.
 
Cathy said:
Doesn't your family history program give these sort of data checks? Legacy Family Tree does. Potential Problems Report.
Click to expand...


I use Family Tree Maker and it does have a data errors report but its not at all obvious where to find it. Plus Family Tree Maker doesn't seem to understand inexact dates so you get lots of errors that are to do with date ranges being over/under max/min values rather than just working out you'd already taken care of that in the date range.

These were a couple of reasons I thought it might be a good idea to include this function in FTAnalyzer.
 
Hi Alexander, I'm busy loading my tree into FTM2012 and I'm adding the supporting records found on Ancestry.
There are some date formats that Ancestry is adding that are not recognised by FTAnalyzer.

Unrecognised date format for : Q2-ABT JUN 1920

Let me know if you need any more details.
 
Q2-ABT Jun 1920 is not a valid GEDCOM format, FTM 2012 will not permit this to be entered as a date in the date field, if you manually type it. The valid format is ABT Jun 1920. When you say there are date formats that Ancestry is adding can you explain how Ancestry is "adding" these dates as they aren't valid in GEDCOM, nor in FTM 2012 nor online in Ancestry.co.uk's tree so I'm at a loss to understand where it is adding it.
 
Ok, well I've investigated it further.

It looks like Ancestry created an unspecified fact for each Marriage Fact, where the marriage had a date greater than 1920. It created a successful marriage fact and a completely pointless unspecified one, with the marriage record attached to both.

I have removed them and will keep an eye for any more that I add like that, and will then try and contact Ancestry if it happens again.

Sorry.
 
Yes. It's still happening, so I have now emailed Ancestry support.

I'll let you know what they say.
 
Here is the reply from Ancestry. They didn't answer the question of why or even tell me how to stop it happening, but The Card Catalog may be of interest to me!
Dear Tim,

Thank you for contacting Ancestry.co.uk in regard to two facts appearing on your timeline when you add one marriage.

I regret the frustration this issue has caused you and thank you for providing the link to this issue in your family tree. We are aware of the problems you are experiencing with adding our marriage records. Our developers have been notified of the matter you have reported. While we work toward a solution, we would like to thank you for both your diligence in reporting issues, and your patience while we address this particular issue.

To help you with your future research I have also attached a link to our card catalogue, this search tool will help you narrow down and filter through our databases for a more accurate search result. The Card Catalog is a list of all the databases on Ancestry. You can then use the filters on the left side of the screen to locate that specific database. More detailed instructions on using the Card Catalog can be found below.
 
Hi Tony,
You'll find Legacy 8 when released even better at highlighting Potential Problems and searching the internet. I can't see any need for the FT Analyzer if you're a Legacy user. (I'm a Legacy beta tester so have had access to Legacy 8 for a while now and it's coming on nicely). See Geoff Rasmussen's preview of this feature
 
This sounds like Lost Cousins is proving so good that the FT program writers are stealing Peter's ideas :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top