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Historic & Modern OS Maps

Alexander Bisset

Alexander Bisset

Administrator
Staff member
I've released a new version of Family Tree Analyzer with a new mapping feature. This allows you to view your ancestors on a Historic OS Map as provided by the National Library of Scotland. This map which covers the WHOLE of the UK not just Scotland, is for maps from 1920-1947 so not perhaps as early as we'd like for most family history things but pre-dates the major post war clearances.

I understand they are releasing further OS Maps at a later date so I will update the program to incorporate them too at some point.

In addition to that I've added support for the Modern OS Maps as supplied by Bing. These give you far greater detail particularly in rural areas than a Google or Bing Street map gives. There is also a Bing Aerial view map so you can see what the area currently looks like too.
 
Come on guys, has anybody used this yet? What do you think of it? Did you find it useful?
 
In particular any stories of how you've been able to find ancestors locations using the program would be most interesting.
 
Alexander Bisset said:
In particular any stories of how you've been able to find ancestors locations using the program would be most interesting.
Click to expand...

Sorry Alex and Tim, not used it yet, but interestingly...' Britain from Above' aerial photography covers a similar period. The two resources together could be useful e.g.
find on the mapping feature, then possibly find an aerial view.:)
 
I've now released v3.1.1.0 that has several tweaks related to editing locations. A new text search feature and copy/paste commands make it far easier to edit your locations.
 
I like the zoom and being able to pick the pin from the bar. :)
 
Errr no, I've found copy and paste...

Where's that documentation when you need it ? ;)
 
I gave up on the mapping feature when I found it too laborious to plough through Google quirks such as placing Glamorgan in Calgary, Canada. More critcal, however, was that when FTA auto-updated a week or so ago, it refused to start after the install bar reached 100%. It also locked my computer [XP Pro SP3] by freezing Explorer. I had to use task manager to force a shutdown [which, incidentally, showed FTA running in the list of processes]. Itried reinstalling, but got the same result so I uninstalled and things appear to have returned to normal.
 
It sounds like it was the codeplex "click once" installer that froze. Note you cannot just reinstall in that case trying that will definitely fail. For Microsofts click once technology if it screws up like that you MUST uninstall first. Then click once will re-install.

Note XP is more prone to problems such as this. Make sure that all critical updates for XP have been installed from windows update as there were several critical windows hang bugs in explorer fixed to do with click once installs. So if you aren't patched up to date this may be the problem.

Also note that ALL support for XP from Microsoft will stop in April so make sure you have run windows update before then as it will simply stop providing updates in April. Actually most likely that windows update will take you to the buy the new windows 8.1 page once support stops. That's what they did with previous versions.

The other problem with support stopping from Microsoft is that companies will stop supporting their products on XP. It is over 12years old after all which in computing terms is ancient. Programmers like myself will find it increasingly difficult to assist if the problem is with XP/explorer crashes especially if the user didn't update their PC with windows updates.

On the Google geoocding. It depends which version you used there were early issues in v3.0 that we're addressed in v3.1. Mostly around the issue you mentioned of rogue points in different countries. These are better now but the quality of output varies with the input text. I'd be happy to look at the text it geo coded and see if I can improve the program further.

What was the EXACT text for the address in Glamorgan it was trying to find?

PS. Note if you wish to avoid the click once install you can use the .exe version.
 
I'm one of those grouchy old farts who sticks with stuff "because it still works and I like it". My car is 20 years old, as is my food mixer. My sweaters have frayed elbows and the sofa has a distinct impression of my rear. I think it stems from living without a female in the place. That said, I have a computer pro for a son, so all my other kit runs on Win7. But I hate the interface - just as I hated XP, and 2000 and 98 [managed to skip Vista]. So when this seven-year-old Dell disappears after a secret visit fom Young Sir, I have no doubt I will hate Win8. In the meantime, I will continue to update XP weekly and try the latest version of FTM.exe.
 
I'm getting a raise to nada and a benefits package? Things are looking up!
 
Tim said:
I'm getting a raise to nada and a benefits package? Things are looking up!
Click to expand...


So now that the HR matters are sorted, please can one of the team please answer a question for me? I haven't used FTA for a while, and when last used I had managed to get all of the errors corrected, so that I was only left with a few date errors where the year was before 1000. Having reloaded the same gedcom data in the latest version (3.1.1.0) I am now getting "Recorded unknown fact types" - what has changed to cause this, and will it affect any of the other analysis? What can I do to tweak my data to be accepted?
 
Hi Anne,

I don't think that's an error. Its just telling you you have a fact type that's non standard. I have them in mine, such as

Recorded unknown fact type Children Status

What does your says after type?
 
Anne, as I add more features extra things will be revealed. It struck me when I was adding support for age facts that I wasn't actually reporting anything about custom fact types I was ignoring. So I decided I'd report that during load and load the facts anyway. Thus it should pickup and display more facts.

So you don't actually need to do anything it's simply a warning that there are custom fact types it doesn't understand. eg: one of the testers discovered that he had a custom fact type of censuss 1871. This was getting ignored but he could clearly see that it was just a typo on his behalf so he was able to fix it.

BTW on the date errors I may be able to do something about that if you can give me an example. I take it they are all just 3 digit years?
 
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