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FTAnalyzer questions.
- Thread starter Norman
- Start date
Apologies for appearing thick if I view my tree on Ancestry what steps are needed to export the GEDCOM? I can't see the button to export. I want to test my own tree in FTM 201x where x is undisclosed, then bitterly moan about the bug on the private forum for 201x.
Private forum eh? You must be special as well
An example please Anne?
AnneC
LostCousins Star
Error parsing date 'ABT 980' for I15319: Matilda DE GANELON' error message was : String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.
This only happens for dates before 1000. It's not the ABT causing the problem as other similar entries are OK. It's not a problem (after all I'm not likely to put these people on Lost Cousins!), but just wondered if it was a general limitation of gedcoms.
Nope this is a general limitation of my FactDate class, I'd not thought to cope with 3 digit years. Indeed I haven't done any work to cope with 2 digit or 1 digit or BC years either. I'm wondering how best to approach this. It may just be that I ignore them? After all for the vast majority of cases it will be a typo eg: the person meant ABT 1980. I'm assuming your's is simply because you happen to have someone pre-1000.
My gut feeling is to say that years prior to 1000 AD are not supported? Thoughts anyone?
My gut feeling is to say that years prior to 1000 AD are not supported? Thoughts anyone?
Bryman
LostCousins Megastar
Would your parsing routine recognise "0980" as a 4 digit date or would it strip the leading zero?
If "0980" is acceptable then an appropriate note in the documentation requiring 4 digits would keep everybody happy (at least for all dates AD).
The only issue with this is that you're adding the 0 in your Family Tree software, and not all may support leading 0's or even export them.
I think you can ignore it for now, but when the pace of change has slowed down then maybe this could be re-visited. FTA is a Family Tree Analysis utility and in theory should cope with all AD years at least. How do you record a BC year in Family Tree software anyway? Does it have a minus or BC on the end? Maybe you ask your friend seeing as she went back to Adam and Eve
As Tim suggests it will depend on how your family tree program exports the GEDCOM date. It is a bit of a fudge however, so probably best being dealt with properly in the program.
I suspect the best solution is to allow 3 digit years but to warn that it might be a mistake eg: someone enters 185 for a census year they probably meant 1851 and so it should warn about this rather than just accept it as a valid year. As I said I suspect the vast majority of cases having pre 1000 years is going to be a typo as very very few people will have got back that far. I don't think I'll ever bother with 1, 2 and BC years as getting back another 1000 years is going to be impossible to verify and so extremely unlikely and rare that it simply isn't worth the significant extra effort coding a solution that would likely slow down the program for people who have trees back to "just" the 1500s.
On BC I don't believe GEDCOM supports BC years.
AnneC
LostCousins Star
Please can someone explain the logic of the "Loose Deaths" tab? On the online help it says: Loose Death list - shows all details where you have death date info for an individual but you haven't updated the death record for that individual.
I don't understand how you can have a death date but not have updated the death record. I've uploaded a file with an example.
I don't understand how you can have a death date but not have updated the death record. I've uploaded a file with an example.
I updated the the documentation to explain as follows :
The Loose Death tab shows you if any of the deaths that are inexact in your tree could be "tightened up" by taking account of any facts you know about the person being alive.
An example of how this works will explain the thinking. Let's say a man is known to be dead in 1891 as his wife is widow on 1891 census. He was born in 1833 married in 1856 and had 5 children, born in Q2 1858, Q3 1861, Q4 1864, Q2 1867 and Q1 1869. He was alive on the 1861 census.
So what can you tell about his death. Well you know he died BEF 1891 and you know he was alive in 1861 as he was on the census so you might have a death of BET 1861 AND 1891. However you also know he must have been alive at least 1868 to have fathered a child in Q1 1869. So if your death entry only said BET 1861 AND 1891 then you would have a "loose death" and it would suggest "tightening" it to BET 1868 AND 1891.
The Loose Death tab shows you if any of the deaths that are inexact in your tree could be "tightened up" by taking account of any facts you know about the person being alive.
An example of how this works will explain the thinking. Let's say a man is known to be dead in 1891 as his wife is widow on 1891 census. He was born in 1833 married in 1856 and had 5 children, born in Q2 1858, Q3 1861, Q4 1864, Q2 1867 and Q1 1869. He was alive on the 1861 census.
So what can you tell about his death. Well you know he died BEF 1891 and you know he was alive in 1861 as he was on the census so you might have a death of BET 1861 AND 1891. However you also know he must have been alive at least 1868 to have fathered a child in Q1 1869. So if your death entry only said BET 1861 AND 1891 then you would have a "loose death" and it would suggest "tightening" it to BET 1868 AND 1891.
Hi Doogan and welcome to the forum.
I'm assuming you are aware that you can change the root person within FTAnalyzer by right clicking on a person in the Individuals tab as you are asking how to do this permanently. The only way is within your Family History Software, which software do you use?
FTA accepts all dates defined by the gedcom standard, plus it also accepts a number of non standard formats. Because FHS does not force you to use the standard nor do they inform you of how to enter dates, this has led to some inventive ways that users have created to enter their dates. Further information on what dates are supported and which are the Gedcom standard can be found here on the FTAnalyzer Documentation page.
I'm assuming you are aware that you can change the root person within FTAnalyzer by right clicking on a person in the Individuals tab as you are asking how to do this permanently. The only way is within your Family History Software, which software do you use?
FTA accepts all dates defined by the gedcom standard, plus it also accepts a number of non standard formats. Because FHS does not force you to use the standard nor do they inform you of how to enter dates, this has led to some inventive ways that users have created to enter their dates. Further information on what dates are supported and which are the Gedcom standard can be found here on the FTAnalyzer Documentation page.
Yes to emphasise Tim's comments. FTA can only read the root person from the GEDCOM file thus it is up to your family history program to correctly write out that person in the root position. (The GEDCOM standard says the root person is the first person in the file). There ought to be an option in your family history program to set the root person. Depending on what program you use this option may be called different thing. In Family Tree Maker it's called the "Home" person for instance.
Your date format is "BET space 1900 space dash space 1910" correct? or is there no spaces between the dashes? Either format was supported in update 86337 which is included in the current live version 3.1.2.0. Are you still getting errors whilst using this version? If so can you post an issue on the FTAnalyzer site with a snippet of your GEDCOM with a single individual who has one of these failing dates please.
I can then load the file and investigate why you are seeing an error. For the record the correct GEDCOM format would be BET 1900 AND 1910. ie: AND rather than a dash.
Your date format is "BET space 1900 space dash space 1910" correct? or is there no spaces between the dashes? Either format was supported in update 86337 which is included in the current live version 3.1.2.0. Are you still getting errors whilst using this version? If so can you post an issue on the FTAnalyzer site with a snippet of your GEDCOM with a single individual who has one of these failing dates please.
I can then load the file and investigate why you are seeing an error. For the record the correct GEDCOM format would be BET 1900 AND 1910. ie: AND rather than a dash.
Bee
LostCousins Superstar
I have been finding FTA very useful in finding errors and gaps. Thank you. However, I am also having the same problem concerning 'between' dates. I use FTM and however I enter a 'between' date it always defaults to 'Bet space year dash year. Any suggestions?
I have also had a data error message - 'month in census year not recognised'. I understand what this means but is there any way of overcoming it? I put the month in for some people so that the information is in chronological order.
Bee it may show as a dash on screen but when FTM exports the BET dates to GEDCOM it honors the correct GEDCOM standard and puts an AND. At least all versions I've used recently do ie: FTM 2011 onwards. I can't recall what previous versions did. What version are you using?
Regarding the "month in census year not recognised" can you tell me what the exact text that FTA is complaining about is? I strongly suspect it's a month name typed out in full rather than the 3 character month. In which case the fix would be to enter the month as a 3 character month.
I'm somewhat confused though as FTM is extremely pedantic about dates and doesn't actually let you enter invalid dates, so I'm not sure how this would occur. What version are you using?
Regarding the "month in census year not recognised" can you tell me what the exact text that FTA is complaining about is? I strongly suspect it's a month name typed out in full rather than the 3 character month. In which case the fix would be to enter the month as a 3 character month.
I'm somewhat confused though as FTM is extremely pedantic about dates and doesn't actually let you enter invalid dates, so I'm not sure how this would occur. What version are you using?
Bee
LostCousins Superstar
Thank you Alexander. I now see the GEDCOM version. I am using FTM2011.
The 'month in census year not recognised' - Error type 'Residence census date warning', Description - Resident date JAN1901 is in a census year but doesn't overlap census date'.
Connected to this problem returns me to the 'between' situation. On a Colour Census Report it gives 'no census information entered' even if it has but has been entered in the 'between dates' format and there are no other entries for residence for the year date. I have a lot of red blocks where the person has an entry for that year census. Any suggestions?
The 'month in census year not recognised' - Error type 'Residence census date warning', Description - Resident date JAN1901 is in a census year but doesn't overlap census date'.
Connected to this problem returns me to the 'between' situation. On a Colour Census Report it gives 'no census information entered' even if it has but has been entered in the 'between dates' format and there are no other entries for residence for the year date. I have a lot of red blocks where the person has an entry for that year census. Any suggestions?
The residence fact warning is just that a warning. However you know it's right so can be ignored. Since you have the default option on of use residence facts as census facts the program treats the RESI facts as census facts and warns that the residence date doesn't match the census year. However it's purely a warning in case it was meant to be a census date.
The Between situation I'm not sure of what format of dates have you got for the census? The census was a single day in the year so I'm not sure why there would be a between date? Can you give a specific example to aid my diagnosis please.
The Between situation I'm not sure of what format of dates have you got for the census? The census was a single day in the year so I'm not sure why there would be a between date? Can you give a specific example to aid my diagnosis please.