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Broken links in FTAnalyzer Website

Maid of Kent

Maid of Kent

Member
Hi Alexander,
Thanks for this piece of software, I think it will be great when I can get the hang of it. As I use a very old piece of software for my Tree - namely Ancestry Family Tree 9.0.4 - this might take a while. I have tried using each of the Trees under the heading Using FTAnalyzer with popular Family History Programs that I can actually link to but none is quite the same as mine. However, that is not why I am doing this posting.

The following sub-headings have broken links. The rest don't matter, but the Getting Started was going to be my first stop and is a must for my level of computer skills.

Getting Started
Guide for Lost Cousins Members
The Tabs
War Dead
Loose Deaths
Data Errors
Using FTAnalyzer with popular Family History Programs
Family Historian
Legacy Family Tree
Roots Magic
Ancestral Quest
The Master Genealogist

Any chance you could post on the Forum the Getting Started section please if that is a quicker option?
 
The links aren't actually broken they just haven't been created yet. I'm sure the documentation team will hear your plea and get to work on a Getting Started section real soon.

If there is a specific issue or problem perhaps if you post the question here it would help write the document. There is a catch 22 when writing getting started documents, by the time you are proficient enough to write the document you no longer can remember all the issues you had when getting started. So if someone like yourself could assist by posting some "starter for 10" how do I questions it would help enormously with writing the documents.

Basically it would be a great help seeing the program from a fresh pair of eyes perspective so if you could help just by asking your questions that would be really great. Remember ALL your questions are perfectly valid, it's usually the seemingly trivial or obvious questions that people feel embarrassed to ask that are the ones that really need to be covered in the documentation.
 
OK, I've updated all the sections that I can.

I'm afraid I can't do the sections on the Family Tree Software that I don't use.
 
Tim said:
Would you like to try the newly written Getting Started section and let me know what you think?
Click to expand...

Can I suggest that you mention that hardly any family tree programs use gedcom as their default file format, but that almost all can export (and import) gedcom files.

And also not to panic if there are a lot of errors, because FTA will help you fix them!

Also, a couple of typos for Alexander - 'errrs' for 'errors' as in 'over 20 errrs'; 'entered' for 'entering' as in 'This will mean that the census report will show everyone as not yet found on census and the Lost Cousins report will report no-one with a census needing entered to Lost Cousins'
 
Peter, I've made updates to getting started as you've suggested, thank you.

I'm not sure where the typos are though?
 
Thanks Peter, I've changed that. I'll not bother making that v2.1.2.2 tonight though two updates in quick succession is probably a bad idea.

Actually I'm hoping to lock down any major changes now so I'll only make emergency changes for fatal bugs. As I'd like to avoid releasing something with major changes for a while.
 
Tim said:
Hi,

Would you like to try the newly written Getting Started section and let me know what you think?
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Tim. Yes, that's really good. However, working by instinct, I had already got that far by using just the Standard GEDCOM in my FT Software.

I suppose what I was thinking might be in the Getting Started section was a step by step way to use the Analyzer. Now that I am able to access more of those links I can see that each is explained individually and is less daunting than having it all in one place. So as far as I am concerned no need to do more with Getting Started.

I will go through each Tab in turn and check them out but not today. I want to take advantage of the free Ancestry weekend. There is one error that I have noticed in the Lost Cousins tab. Just a typo, should be 1891 and not 1991 I feel sure.
In the example below on the 2nd line, you can see that censuses for 1881 through to 1911 have been entered, but a Lost Cousins Fact has not been recorded for 1881 and therefore shows as yellow. The green box for 1991 however means that the census data and a Lost Cousins Fact has been entered.

I am attaching a screen shot of the 1881 Lost Cousins analysis from the Census Tab. There are names on this list that I know are on the Lost Cousins Website. Hovering over the name gives me why the different typeface/colour.

When I do the full Lost Cousins I get nothing but a mixture of red and grey.

I do think that this could be a problem which relates to my old software but would like to know what you think before I make a massive change.

 

Attachments

Thanks, I've fixed the typo.

Maid of Kent said:
I will go through each Tab in turn and check them out but not today. I want to take advantage of the free Ancestry weekend.
Click to expand...
Can I suggest that you look at the Census report then this weekend. It will show you people that were likely to be alive at a census time but you don't have a census for. Double clicking on the name of a person on that report will search the Ancestry website for you making it much quicker to get results than typing in yourself thus maximising the census searching data you can get from Ancestry's free weekend.
 
Alexander Bisset said:
Thanks, I've fixed the typo.


Can I suggest that you look at the Census report then this weekend. It will show you people that were likely to be alive at a census time but you don't have a census for. Double clicking on the name of a person on that report will search the Ancestry website for you making it much quicker to get results than typing in yourself thus maximising the census searching data you can get from Ancestry's free weekend.
Click to expand...

Might have misled you. I was referring to ppl for whom I have already entered census details on the Lost Cousins My Ancestors page. So no need to search for the census again.
 
Maid of Kent said:
I am attaching a screen shot of the 1881 Lost Cousins analysis from the Census Tab. There are names on this list that I know are on the Lost Cousins Website. Hovering over the name gives me why the different typeface/colour.

When I do the full Lost Cousins I get nothing but a mixture of red and grey.

I do think that this could be a problem which relates to my old software but would like to know what you think before I make a massive change.
Click to expand...

Hi,

The screenshot that you attached is actually a shot of the census report for 1881.

On the Lost Cousins report, the red's and grey refer to the status of that person for that census year. A grey box shows that the person was not alive for that census year and a red box means that no census information has been recorded.
As you say, this is probably an issue with your software and its age. For FTAnalyzer to work correctly, census information has to be entered in a specific way so that it creates a record in your gedcom file that can be analysed. Similarly for Lost Cousins data. As this non standard, you will have to create a custom record to enter this data.
Entering the data in this manner into Ancestry Family Tree 9.0.4 maybe possible, or it maybe time to think of an upgrade to currently available software which does support easy entry of census and Lost Cousins data.
 
Tried entering Lost Cousins 1911 into the Notes section of my #4 ancestor. FTA tells me that any censuses entered into that section won't show up; so that's quite positive.

I put an up to date GEDCOM into MyHeritage software which I also have and followed the instructions on how to make it show up. e.g.Individual > Facts > New Fact > Lost Cousins on the Custom Type line > Year of census into Date line.

Then I Saved that information and created a new GEDCOM to put into FTA. Still didn't come up with any census information for that ancestor.

Any ideas please?
 
Maid of Kent said:
Tried entering Lost Cousins 1911 into the Notes section of my #4 ancestor. FTA tells me that any censuses entered into that section won't show up; so that's quite positive.

I put an up to date GEDCOM into MyHeritage software which I also have and followed the instructions on how to make it show up. e.g.Individual > Facts > New Fact > Lost Cousins on the Custom Type line > Year of census into Date line.

Then I Saved that information and created a new GEDCOM to put into FTA. Still didn't come up with any census information for that ancestor.

Any ideas please?
Click to expand...
Hi,

Can you create a test gedcom for me please? One with a single person in it to which you have added a 1911 census and a Lost Cousins fact for 1911?

If you prefer, you can send a small gedcom snippet of your tree with the individuals that aren't working to my PM. Please don't post your tree here.
 
Maid of Kent said:
Then I Saved that information and created a new GEDCOM to put into FTA. Still didn't come up with any census information for that ancestor.

Any ideas please?
Click to expand...

You didn't say that you actually entered any data against the new fact. You need to add a new fact of type "Lost Cousins" for a person with the date of the census year in. Then when you next export a gedcom the fact will show and be picked up by FTA.
 
Norman said:
You didn't say that you actually entered any data against the new fact. You need to add a new fact of type "Lost Cousins" for a person with the date of the census year in. Then when you next export a gedcom the fact will show and be picked up by FTA.
Click to expand...

Actually, the second para of my posting says exactly that, but perhaps in a different way. Anyway, I did enter the data in exactly the way described it should be done.
 
Hi you may be confusing two different things. You say you entered a lost cousins fact and the program said you had no census facts.

A Lost Cousins facts is a note to the program to say you have entered that person on the Lost Cousins website. A Census fact is quite different that records that you found someone on the census.

So these are two different fact types. Does that help ?
 
I believe it does. Correct me if I'm wrong but FTA will only tell me that I've entered a census on Lost Cousins My Ancestors page IF I make a note in my FTSoftware to that effect. In other words, there is no physical link between the software on my computer and the main Lost Cousins Website.
 
Maid of Kent said:
I believe it does. Correct me if I'm wrong but FTA will only tell me that I've entered a census on Lost Cousins My Ancestors page IF I make a note in my FTSoftware to that effect. In other words, there is no physical link between the software on my computer and the main Lost Cousins Website.
Click to expand...

Correct.

FTA does not know who you have entered on to Lost Cousins. So that it does know, the user has to create a new Fact (called Lost Cousins, and includes the census year date) for a person in their FT software.

This new Fact and that you have also entered Census data into your FT software allows FTA to work fully.

So to recap, there are 2 bits of data needed by FTA to allow it to report correctly, a Lost Cousins Fact and Census information.
These 2 bits of data are entered into your FT software. FTA uses these 2 bits of data to populate the Census and Lost Cousins reports.
 
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