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Budgie Code

Using the program I've written is just like using any other program, absolutely NO programming or anything like that needed. Once you've downloaded it and run it, you can load up your GEDCOM file and click on the Individuals tab. This will show you the individuals and your code, this is an example from my file...

FTAnalyzer.png

NB. It doesn't normally show the names all fuzzy like that, I was just obfuscating the names of living individuals in my file.

So for you, all you'd do is load your file open the individuals tab then click "BudgieCode" to sort by that column, then view the codes to see if they look right for your file, or if I've made a mistake somewhere. I've not yet released this version but if you are happy to try it then I'll upload this version as soon as I know.
 
I'm impressed. Something tells me I ought to follow this to its conclusion, having set the ball rolling, as it were, so ... OK - tell me what I have to do to download and test your program
 
I'll apply the changes this evening when I get home and will upload a new version with the "budgie" code then. The current version can be obtained from http://ftanalyzer.codeplex.com

There are a couple of pre-requisites that you may or may not have on your PC. Those are Microsoft's .Net 4.0 and Microsoft's report viewer. Both are free and links to download them are on the site. So it may be worth checking you have those pre-requisites first.
 
I have been looking at the output in excel and can see a use for it.
I believe I am getting the correct number of codes
screen_2013-05-17 08.51.53.jpg

A few comments

My son and his wife are showing as 0000-00 should that be 0000-01? I only have the one child so don't know what happens if you have more.

Because of the way excel sorts if you put an "*" before the alpha code it will bring spouses up above children, My brother in law becomes 0001+01*s and sorts between my sister and their children.

It also moves me up the sort order above my sister and her family (0001d becomes 0001*d)

I am getting duplicate codes for relationships where there has been more than one spouses which is quite good when looking at the data in a pivot table.
The real problem I am getting when there are children from each relationship and they are getting the same code. The following may be a step to far in coding terms but I was wonder if you could add a suffix to the "s" codes and then sort the children in some way, may be by DOB

Still a couple of areas I need to spend a bit more time on
I am not sure how I feel about the + and - denoting the position of siblings to a direct ancestor in terms of sorting.
Also I have cousins of my Mum who marry and want to look at them in more detail.

Its great to see this sort of collaboration coming out of the forum
 
Hmm yes I'd not tested anything where the root person has children/grandchildren etc. This deserves further investigation. I'll add the *s suggestion as it was annoying me being split. However it would still show direct ancestors either side of their children as by definition they have a different starting Ahnentafel number.

Different children from different marriages will indeed start again from 1 in the current code. Perhaps if 1st marriage children stayed as 1,2,3 etc then 2nd marriage children were 1a, 2a, 3a and a 3rd marriage children were 1b,2b,3b?
 
Can I ask a couple of questions to help me think more about the sort order.
Do you know which children belong to which marriage?
Do you know the sort order of children in a family, I was thinking of DOB (if they have one)?
Also had you thought if there was anyway of using the Family numbers you create to help in our quest for the perfect sort order.
 
Do you know which children belong to which marriage?
Click to expand...
Yes the software creates "Family" groups of individuals an individual can appear in many families, sometimes as a parent sometimes as a child. So it is easy to list all children in a family.
Do you know the sort order of children in a family, I was thinking of DOB (if they have one)?
Click to expand...
Assuming a DOB exists then yes I can sort the children. Hence suggestion for simply tagging extra a's b's etc

Family numbers suffer the same issue as individual IDs in that they are in sequence as the data is entered into Family Tree program which is essentially random.
 
I have worked out a pattern that nearly works but may add too great a complexity, but I must say I have enjoyed the mental exercise. Just though I have not tried this on a simple family and it might make them too complicated.
See what you both think - I won't be upset I you hate it - as I say its been fun to do

If spouses are given a chronological order sa, sb, sc and this carries on to their decedents then you get the sort order below.
As you will see the 2 spouses stay together under the prime, but I think that the remainder of the sort is quite good.
I have done this by hand and don't know if it can be programmed however it might be easier to label 1st spouses as "sa" from the beginning.

screen_2013-05-17 13.38.31.jpg
 
I'm not sure why the .* for children rather than just *? If you left out the . between 03 and * wouldn't it then sort 0003-03*sa, 0003-03*sa.01 etc then 0003-03*sb!
 
Hello Adrienne and Alexander. I had three late nights followed by a busy Saturday, so I'm just catching up with these latest exchanges. It's wonderful to see how this idea has taken wings, and sparked investigations and developments that seem quite beyond what I envisaged when I struggled a couple of years ago with the idea of looking at 2,000-plus people in a single, meaningful picture. Well done, both of you.
 
If you are happy SB I'll merge Adrienne suggestions into my FTAnalyzer application as the result looks like a workable code.
 
Quite happy, Alexander - as I said before, I don't claim any proprietorial rights on the scheme - it was an idea I thought worthy of sharing; looks as if you can make it 'go places' so that it can benefit others.
 
Alexander Bisset said:
Potential issue...

What happens if two children in a family are both direct ancestors?

eg: person's father and mother are first cousins. That would mean father (2), mother (3). Paternal grandparents (4) & (5) as normal and Maternal grandparents (6) & (7) however lets say 4 & 6 are brothers in a family of 10 and they are 3rd eldest and 7th eldest respectively. The parents of these brothers are (8) & (9) (and 12 & 13 won't exist in this tree). What numbers do the 10 siblings get?

Either 4-2, 4-1, 4, 4+1, 4+2, 4+3, 4+4, 4+5, 4+6, 4+7 or 6-6, 6-5, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, 6, 6+1, 6+2, 6+3 would be valid. Is a rule of keeping the smallest Ahnentafel best? With the additional proviso that you never replace a Ahnentafel? So we would end up with the family of 10 being codes as...

4-2, 4-1, 4, 4+1, 4+2, 4+3, 6, 4+5, 4+6, 4+7?
Click to expand...
I met with this problem simply using the Lost Cousin 6 generation Ancestor chart for the FT of A.N.other, when two sisters married different unrelated men but the parents of the sisters would have had two different places and thus numbers on the chart in the previous generation, with the knock-on effect on their parents. Since Peter was in the throes of setting up the Forum I didn't bother him for the answer, and I still don't know it.
 
Tim said:
Hi Suffolk Budgie,

You've obviously spent a lot of time developing this numbering system, but what does it solve? What do you now use it for?
Click to expand...
Nobody answered this question.

There are going to be a lot of scenarios where either you will have to think of a new way of depicting it or a person can have 2 different codes completely legitimately.

I have 2 sisters that married 2 brothers, and when 1 brother and 1 sister died, well you guessed it.

Are you just using this for sorting? To group people together?
 
Well, "Deceased wife's sister" again! I was doing a FT for a friend and entering each person on Peter's chart for my convenience when I came across the matter. (I've never put my tree on Peter's chart. I should have come across the problem sooner if I had. And what about my grandmother, illegitimate daughter of her own father's (married) cousin?
Giving the individuals 2 legitimate numbers, Tim, is what I did, but it distorts the FT on traditional tree chart when attempting to bring the lines back together in the previous generation(s). There isn't a tidy answer, I'm afraid.
 
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