Looking good. The GenoPro duplicated a tag on the front page so I tided that up. An excellent start though good work, thanks.
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It's easier than ever before to check your entries from the 1881 Census - more details here
FTAnalyzer now searches census records
- Thread starter Alexander Bisset
- Start date
Lol. I was trying to create another indentation under Creating Custom Facts, one for GenoPro, one for Ancestry etc.
But it looks like you've moved it to GenoPro, but the heading says this when you enter it Documentation
Creating Custom Facts
GenoPro so its a bit confused.
I don't think you can do 3 indentations.
But it looks like you've moved it to GenoPro, but the heading says this when you enter it Documentation
I don't think you can do 3 indentations.
You could using HTML but not those wiki tags I don't think.
Can I ask what may be a stupid question? I was attracted to FTAnalyzer by the prospect that it would reveal gaps in my Lost Cousins entries. But after struggling through the introductory instructions, it seems I must have a "fact" in each entry of my FTM tree stating a census date. I have never used this information in the years building my tree, relying on notes which cross-refer to actual transcriptions or images downloaded to a storage folder. This makes me suspect that I will have to add census dates to every one of my 5000+ entries. That's going to be an enormous job. Or have I got this wrong.
A GEDCOM file is based on facts, birth facts, marriage facts, death facts, occupation facts, residency facts, name facts, immigration facts, emigration facts, military service facts etc, and yes census facts.
On top of that you can record notes against each of those facts. In order for any automated system to understand your data it has to have structure. If all your core data for a census is in a note then sadly there isn't much any program can do. I am aware that several older family history programs only partially adhere to the GEDCOM standard and didn't even support things like census facts and got round this by encouraging users to cut n paste the census text into a note.
We are however investigating how to get round this. It may be that your census notes are indeed recorded in a standard manner and could be parsed (ie: read by the program and understood). I am aware that some programs like GenoPro for instance that don't normally record census facts can be tweaked to show the census entries as census facts. We are working to put together some notes on how to achieve this with the various programs out there.
In order to assist further therefore it would be useful if you could identify which program you use and what a typical census entry looks like. Perhaps include a small GEDCOM snippet showing an example family with a census record?
Hopefully there is some structure to the data ie: that all the census records are stored in a common format, if the format and layout is different a lot of the time then sadly there isn't a lot that I can do to try to make the program understand your notes. Images will be impossible to treat as even as humans we struggle to read a census enumerator's handwriting a computer program would have no chance of reading a census image consistently.
I'll try my best but no guarantees it depends on how consistent the data is.
On top of that you can record notes against each of those facts. In order for any automated system to understand your data it has to have structure. If all your core data for a census is in a note then sadly there isn't much any program can do. I am aware that several older family history programs only partially adhere to the GEDCOM standard and didn't even support things like census facts and got round this by encouraging users to cut n paste the census text into a note.
We are however investigating how to get round this. It may be that your census notes are indeed recorded in a standard manner and could be parsed (ie: read by the program and understood). I am aware that some programs like GenoPro for instance that don't normally record census facts can be tweaked to show the census entries as census facts. We are working to put together some notes on how to achieve this with the various programs out there.
In order to assist further therefore it would be useful if you could identify which program you use and what a typical census entry looks like. Perhaps include a small GEDCOM snippet showing an example family with a census record?
Hopefully there is some structure to the data ie: that all the census records are stored in a common format, if the format and layout is different a lot of the time then sadly there isn't a lot that I can do to try to make the program understand your notes. Images will be impossible to treat as even as humans we struggle to read a census enumerator's handwriting a computer program would have no chance of reading a census image consistently.
I'll try my best but no guarantees it depends on how consistent the data is.
I am quirky, as I do all my work with FTM2006. I was never comfortable with the later change of layout, so although I have FTM2012 installed - and sometimes import a GED and flick through it - I find it easier to add information to 2006. The key, however, is that I use the "notes" section for freeform information such as "refer to JPG of 2011 Census" rather than the "facts" tab. Now I am discovering how FTAnalyzer works, I would not expect you to twist in knots to accommodate me.
BTW, I get an exception error clicking on Birth Registrations [I use Win XP Pro] "failed to complete two elements in the array".
BTW, I get an exception error clicking on Birth Registrations [I use Win XP Pro] "failed to complete two elements in the array".
Hmm FTM 2006 is entirely based on recording facts and fully supports entering census facts. FTM 2012 is actually a far superior product and I can fully understand that it's initially looks different and that's off putting however if you persevere especially if you have an Ancestry subscription you will find that the ability to merge data from Ancestry's records is amazingly good. The means of recording data between 2006 and 2012 isn't that different it has a popup box rather than the somewhat clunky interface 2006 had.
I've used FTM since 2004 and so suspect I fully understand the "leap" you are fearing between 2006 and 2012. However I'd thoroughly recommend making that leap. That said if all your census records aren't actually recorded as census data and simply refer to images etc then sadly there is nothing I can do to turn that into census facts.
The error message was that failed to complete or failed to compare? The birth registrations don't actually do anything useful anymore it was an attempt to print out a list in the format that a birth record appears on a Scottish birth registration form so that when going to the records office it was easier to make sure you'd captured all the information on the form. It never really worked properly though. I've tidied this up for the next version.
I've used FTM since 2004 and so suspect I fully understand the "leap" you are fearing between 2006 and 2012. However I'd thoroughly recommend making that leap. That said if all your census records aren't actually recorded as census data and simply refer to images etc then sadly there is nothing I can do to turn that into census facts.
The error message was that failed to complete or failed to compare? The birth registrations don't actually do anything useful anymore it was an attempt to print out a list in the format that a birth record appears on a Scottish birth registration form so that when going to the records office it was easier to make sure you'd captured all the information on the form. It never really worked properly though. I've tidied this up for the next version.
I have some feedback about the Census tab of FTA
First a walk through of what I did.
Using FTA v2.0.2.0 selected Census tab,
Direct Ancestors ticked, all others unticked
Exclude individuals over 110,
Treat 'Residence' facts as Census and Ignore locations in filter ticked,
UK Census 1881
Show results
178 records with 57 families, with plenty of red coloured direct ancestors, but also quite a lot of black coloured Blood relatives, and 3 Married to Direct/Blood results.
Repeating the search, same census, but with just Blood relatives ticked, shows Blood relatives and Married to Direct/Blood results
Repeating with just Married to Blood or Direct ticked, shows Married to Blood/Direct as well as By Marriage results.
Repeating with just Related by Marriage ticked produces only Related by marriage results, as does Unknown only produces Unknown results
One bit of feedback that surprised me is that I saw in the Direct Ancestors report, the Ahnentafel numbers of 13954 & 13955 - these are my 11th great grandparents and were born in the late 1500's (I don't have dates for them, but I do have dates for their daughter who was born 1600), I also have Ahnentafel numbers of 888 & 889 (7th great grandparents, no dates for them yet except marriage, but they were married in 1743)
Could an automatic filter be put in place, based on Ahnentafel numbering, to help eliminate these obviously not possible census results?
I realise there could be issues with trying to determine what a maximum number could be due to the widely varying possible age gaps in each generation, but realistically, how many children born today are going to have 11x great grandparents around in the 1841, 1881 & 1911 UK census (assuming a 15 year age gap for every single generation, then I think a child born today could have an 11xgreat grandparent born in 1833, so it's technically possible, but not very likely)
All in all I am loving this tool - it is helping me with so many things - thank you!
First a walk through of what I did.
Using FTA v2.0.2.0 selected Census tab,
Direct Ancestors ticked, all others unticked
Exclude individuals over 110,
Treat 'Residence' facts as Census and Ignore locations in filter ticked,
UK Census 1881
Show results
178 records with 57 families, with plenty of red coloured direct ancestors, but also quite a lot of black coloured Blood relatives, and 3 Married to Direct/Blood results.
Repeating the search, same census, but with just Blood relatives ticked, shows Blood relatives and Married to Direct/Blood results
Repeating with just Married to Blood or Direct ticked, shows Married to Blood/Direct as well as By Marriage results.
Repeating with just Related by Marriage ticked produces only Related by marriage results, as does Unknown only produces Unknown results
One bit of feedback that surprised me is that I saw in the Direct Ancestors report, the Ahnentafel numbers of 13954 & 13955 - these are my 11th great grandparents and were born in the late 1500's (I don't have dates for them, but I do have dates for their daughter who was born 1600), I also have Ahnentafel numbers of 888 & 889 (7th great grandparents, no dates for them yet except marriage, but they were married in 1743)
Could an automatic filter be put in place, based on Ahnentafel numbering, to help eliminate these obviously not possible census results?
I realise there could be issues with trying to determine what a maximum number could be due to the widely varying possible age gaps in each generation, but realistically, how many children born today are going to have 11x great grandparents around in the 1841, 1881 & 1911 UK census (assuming a 15 year age gap for every single generation, then I think a child born today could have an 11xgreat grandparent born in 1833, so it's technically possible, but not very likely)
All in all I am loving this tool - it is helping me with so many things - thank you!
I think the report shows the other family members of the direct ancestors?
It is doing that, and if that is what it's meant to do great, it's just I interpreted the "Direct Ancestors" to mean just that, only those in my direct line and therefore only those with Ahnentafel numbers.
Either way is fine, as long as it's working the way it's intended.
Either way is fine, as long as it's working the way it's intended.
I'll investigate and report back.
The problem is that the root person doesn't need to be set as someone born today. You could just as easily be concentrating on a single branch and have set the root person as someone born in the 1800s.
My own solution to the problem is I always use the extra GEDCOM date formats. So for instance for the born in late 1500s you could just record a birth as BEF 1600 rather than leaving it blank. Since the daughter was born 1600 you might even say BEF 1588 (assuming at least 12 at time of child born) (or whatever min age you want to use). The program would then know that the max death date was 1710 thus they couldn't be on a census.
Having lots of unknown dates means the program has not a lot to go on. I'd rather not add in extra dates to use in the program as that could confuse people showing a date that doesn't exist in their file.
Hmm its a bug. A rather annoying bug. The initial filter is on the family and so it picks up any family that meets the criteria. It then filters out individuals based on Age, Location but it should filter individuals based on everything you specified.
Good point, I was doing that at one stage but found that because I was making the assumption that the child I has was the eldest child and assigning an approximate About Birth Year for the parents, that I was missing out on a lot of places to check and search because my known child was in fact one of the younger children and the birth year was sometime 10-15 years wrong. So I switched to leaving it blank, but using a Before Birth Year would help both situaions I think.
Could the Direct Ancestor filter be based on the Ahnentafel number only?
BEF still copes, if you get into the habit of remembering its any time before. I use 16 years and then rely on the data errors report to show me where I've then found earlier children.
I've re-written the whole filtering process using newer technology (Lambdas) this has dramatically simplified the code but was a steep learning curve. The downside is that there are a whole lot of things that were working that need fully testing. I may release a beta copy to some people to just check things are fine before releasing it as v2.1.0.0
I've re-written the whole filtering process using newer technology (Lambdas) this has dramatically simplified the code but was a steep learning curve. The downside is that there are a whole lot of things that were working that need fully testing. I may release a beta copy to some people to just check things are fine before releasing it as v2.1.0.0
Quick follow up question regarding Census and Lost Cousins reports - is it possible to export these reports to Excel?
If I print the report, the text is too small for me to read, in Excel I can keep the font size large enough too read and still see all the relevant data.
If I print the report, the text is too small for me to read, in Excel I can keep the font size large enough too read and still see all the relevant data.