Publicising Lost Cousins

[peter]

Tim, bearing in mind that there will be some FTA users who are not LostCousins members, is there a document already available that tells them what they would need to do to take advantage of Alexander's ingenious solution?

And is there something similar for LostCousins members who are not FTA users?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I plan to put together something to encourage FTA users to sign up to Lost Cousins. I was thinking a simple step by step PDF guide. It wouldn't assume existing Lost Cousins member. To do that I'd prefer to get the look and feel finalised so that when I do screen shots it's how it will appear when the user uses it.

For existing Lost Cousins members I was assuming you'd put something in the newsletter . There are already various resources on my website that explain how to get started. ie: how to upload a GEDCOM and process it. Then it would be just a case of following the new guide.

The only major limitation is that they have to have a census reference stored (even if it's just in the notes) as without a census reference the Lost Cousins site doesn't work.

However that said I'm highlighting that they have X entries that CAN upload and Y entries they could upload if they just find a census ref.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

This is what it currently looks like... The first is the existing Lost Cousins statistics page. The second is the new upload to website page.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Beta 2 out now adds support for all bar Ireland & Newfoundland - neither of which I know what the format of the census references are so they aren't being picked up.

Big issue I can see at present is any partial census references will cause Lost Cousins website to throw an error to say it's not recognised. I've tried to gracefully fail when this happens and report it however it may be better to pickup the error before it tries to send. Not sure exactly how I can do that at this stage though. So testing to clarify where any issue lies with how it's currently dealt with is needed. It may be that my current solution is sufficient.

 

[peter]

Beta 2 out now adds support for all bar Ireland & Newfoundland - neither of which I know what the format of the census references are so they aren't being picked up.

Big issue I can see at present is any partial census references will cause Lost Cousins website to throw an error to say it's not recognised. I've tried to gracefully fail when this happens and report it however it may be better to pickup the error before it tries to send. Not sure exactly how I can do that at this stage though. So testing to clarify where any issue lies with how it's currently dealt with is needed. It may be that my current solution is sufficient.

I can help with both of those - but not until I've finished writing my newsletter, I'm afraid.

Two things you need to know re E&W 1881 is that there are people on vessel who don't have a page number. A null entry in the page field won't be accepted, but a zero will be. The other is that there are a handful of folio numbers which have a single character alphabetic suffix (this where the person numbering the sheets managed to turn over two or three at the same time). In this case the suffix should be omitted as it is a numeric field.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

No problem Peter, no rush I'd rather take time to get it right than rush it. Tim has been a big help, as ever, spotting issues. Hence beta 3 is now out with fix for scroll bars and a fix for an issue where references with missing schedules were submitted in error.

 

[Bryman]

That's usually because you put it in a restricted windows folder eg: Program files or Program files (x86). Windows doesn't let you install programs manually to those folders.

Thanks Alexander, I had just created a new folder within Downloads. When I moved that to somewhere else, I was able to run FTA without any problem.

I logged in to the LC website from the Updates sub-tag but was unsure why I needed to confirm that the first individual to be updated should be confirmed as the root Person. The small GEDCOM file that I was using did not contain Lost Cousins records as I have 'lost' my script updates for including them when generating the file. However, the two individuals reported as missing entries at LC had been entered many years ago.

With the check box left unchecked, clicking on the Update button didn't seem to do anything. When I checked the box and repeated the update request, both individuals were reported as having been added, followed by the "Finished" message.

I then looked at My Ancestors page sorted by Date of Entry and only found the new 'root' addition at the top of the list. The second individual had not been added !!
I then deleted the new added record marked as "Direct Ancestor 1" because that was not true.

I tried requesting a repeat update to see if the deleted individual would be reinserted at LC but again no action seemed to happen. Perhaps there needs to be a message output to indicate that no updates were applied?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

The reason for confirming the root person is that one of the fields on the Lost Cousins form is a relationship type. If you have the wrong root person it would set the wrong relationship type. The update button is disabled until you tick the confirmation box hence the reason you couldn't proceed until you ticked it.

The problem you seem to have encountered is that the root person wasn't you so the records it created had the wrong direct ancestor info. Note if one of those had already been entered then the website would just silently ignore the extra entry. I'm not aware of any way I can currently get feedback from the Lost Cousins website to say the entry already existed. You will note from the previous page in this thread I'd a query about that.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

To follow up when you said you repeated did it not say a message when you click the button to update it should immediately say either...
You have {LCUpdates.Count} possible records to add to Lost Cousins. Proceed?

or

You have no records to add to Lost Cousins at this time. Use the Research Suggestions to find more people on the census, or enter missing census references

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Oh just a thought Peter for the newsletter you are currently working on. Perhaps you could put in a "Coming Soon" noting the forthcoming update and suggest that in preparation people should check they have noted the census references? Particularly for the E&W 1881. The existing version for Windows has a Census reference field in the relevant Lost Cousins report.

Many people have got such as yourself have got census references in their notes this should be sufficient. Others may have recorded it sources or in the census fact. Users merging from Ancestry for those that use the website or FTM or RootsMagic will have the census reference entered automatically. So thousands of people will have hundreds of entries already in their tree.

 

[Bryman]

The reason for confirming the root person is that one of the fields on the Lost Cousins form is a relationship type. If you have the wrong root person it would set the wrong relationship type. The update button is disabled until you tick the confirmation box hence the reason you couldn't proceed until you ticked it.

Thank you for explanation. I had not thought about need to identify relationship but presumably that will only include Blood/Direct/Marriage. What would you enter if none of those? Should "added" message include the relationship assigned for user to check/alter in LC if necessary? Please will you add something on that sub-tag to explain need for confirmation in order to activate the Update button and perhaps change the colour of the button when activated, not just when pointer hovers over it? Also, should there be a comment about changing the root person if another individual is required? In my case, the confirmation request referred to my direct ancestor 14 but I as root person appear on a different tree so perhaps this capability is not relevant to my use of multiple trees and hence GEDCOM files. Not a major problem for me as I tend to update LC as soon as I find the census reference rather than leave till later.

Note if one of those had already been entered then the website would just silently ignore the extra entry.

That is what I was expecting and trying to confirm how FTA handled with this test.

when you said you repeated did it not say a message when you click the button to update

I think I unchecked the box when I tried to repeat so the button was no longer active.

 

[jorghes]

I wanted to have a go at the beta test - downloaded the fines, but can't seem to find the program file itself to run the beta program - or is there something I'm missing?

 

[Bryman]

I wanted to have a go at the beta test - downloaded the fines, but can't seem to find the program file itself to run the beta program - or is there something I'm missing?

The downloaded file is a compressed .zip file such as FTAnalyzer.v7.3.0.0.beta1.zip so needs to be uncompressed into a new folder, not within Downloads (that was my mistake). One of the uncompressed files will be FTAnalyzer.exe (with size about 6,500 KB). Double click that file to run it and the beta version of FTA will start.

 

[jorghes]

The downloaded file is a compressed .zip file such as FTAnalyzer.v7.3.0.0.beta1.zip so needs to be uncompressed into a new folder, not within Downloads (that was my mistake). One of the uncompressed files will be FTAnalyzer.exe (with size about 6,500 KB). Double click that file to run it and the beta version of FTA will start.

Oh I did that - unzipped into a new folder outside of the Downloads... but there isn't a "FTAnalyzer.exe" file in there!

 

[Bryman]

Did you fully extract all files? I have just downloaded beta4 and when all files are extracted, the FTAnalyzer.exe is present and does run.

However, note for Alexander, loading my previously used GEDCOM file produces the following error message as part of startup . . .

Error loading previously submitted Lost Cousins data. SQL logic error
no such column: FullName

 

[jorghes]

I don't have a link for Beta4, I was trying Beta 3- do you have the link?

 

[peter]

If you're using FTA to add entries to your My Ancestors page please check them afterwards using the grey arrow symbols (it doesn't take long - only seconds if the entries are correct). I suspect you'll find that in some cases the names don't match the census.

Bear in mind that the protocol varies according to the census - for the 1880/81 censuses we use the transcript, but for other censuses it's the image. Where a private household is split over two or more pages we use the references for the first page but - for example - a family in a workhouse would be recorded according to the page on which each appears.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Thank you for explanation. I had not thought about need to identify relationship but presumably that will only include Blood/Direct/Marriage. What would you enter if none of those?

At present the user would enter that data manually - that's still an option

Should "added" message include the relationship assigned for user to check/alter in LC if necessary? Please will you add something on that sub-tag to explain need for confirmation in order to activate the Update button and perhaps change the colour of the button when activated, not just when pointer hovers over it? Also, should there be a comment about changing the root person if another individual is required?/QUOTE]

I can set the button to go green as well when box is ticked and add a tooltip.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I don't have a link for Beta4, I was trying Beta 3- do you have the link?

Beta5 now out

 

[Alexander Bisset]

If you're using FTA to add entries to your My Ancestors page please check them afterwards using the grey arrow symbols (it doesn't take long - only seconds if the entries are correct). I suspect you'll find that in some cases the names don't match the census.

Bear in mind that the protocol varies according to the census - for the 1880/81 censuses we use the transcript, but for other censuses it's the image. Where a private household is split over two or more pages we use the references for the first page but - for example - a family in a workhouse would be recorded according to the page on which each appears.

This is why I thought a specific FTAnalyzer field would be useful then on the ancestors page you could highlight them in red or something to show they haven't been checked. Then once user had confirmed an entry they would be ok. It would give an extra level of protection to the core data.