August 2002 - FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS

RE: [FHU] 1901 Census

by David W Pacey

Hi All, well after reading the message from you all saying 1901 census site was up and running, I decided to give it a whirl, pleased I did, I went on at 9pm Friday night, and by 10:30, I had searched, found, paid for, and downloaded 7 images, superb images at that, all for £5.25p, Cant be bad. Only problems I encountered were frequent messages telling me my session had timed out, after only a minute or so. But on searching again it worked. Also, after saving the image to my hard drive, the viewer sometimes froze, and had to be terminated with the dreaded ctl alt del combo. None the less, I am impressed...at least it works. Sorry it has nothing to do with FH, apart from me now being able to fill in a few more gaps:-) but thought I would share that with you. Regards, Dave Pacey -----Original Message----- From: Geoff Lowe [mailto:Gpclowe@btopenworld.com] Sent: 29 August 2002 23:00 To: FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS-L(a)rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [FHU] 1901 Census ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Goff" <peter.goff(a)btinternet.com> > Its only on line 0900 hrs - 1900 hrs Monday to Friday, but at least it works. It actually works outside that time too; it just seems more difficult to open an account outside the official opening hours. Geoffers Charlbury, Oxfordshire

17 years, 5 months

Re: [FHU] 1901 Census

by Peter Goff

Its only on line 0900 hrs - 1900 hrs Monday to Friday, but at least it works. Peter Goff Kingsclere, Hampshire, UK www.langdon-goff.org.uk All outgoing e-mails are scanned for viruses There are no attachments to this message

17 years, 5 months

1901 Census

by Brian Teece

Hi Everyone, The 1901 Census is on-line !!! Brian Teece Researching Teece/Teese Worldwide

17 years, 5 months

RE: [FHU] Wish List

by Niall Enright

Simon, I have been using Family Historian now for over 2 months as my primary Genealogy program and must say that I have found it to be *_superb_*. I do have a few items that I would like to add to the "Wish List" for future developments - mainly things that will make FH easier to use: 1) Property Dialog for Individuals: can you have an option to always open this out in the fully expanded state (spouse and children) every time, including Source details. I always work in this mode and find the extra button clicks a little inconvenient (perhaps this should be remembered from the last session?) 2) Individual Records window: can you make the search for individuals "incremental" - that is to say that the selection will continue to be refined if you type a series of characters, rather than simply move to the first instance of the character. 3) Can you always offer the "families" and "multimedia" tabs on the records window - rather than having to select these from the main menu. 4) Can you offer a tool to capitalise surnames automatically - I like the convention of capitalised surnames, but if I import GEDCOM files I sometimes have to laboriously capitalise these. 5) I would love to see a diagram where the reliability of data can be assessed at a glance (hence helping to plan future researches). What I have in mind is a diagram where the source status ("primary evidence, Secondary evidence, Questionable and Unreliable") associated with a particular Fact (e.g. "whole record, birth, death" etc) would provide a diagram with the individuals' boxes highlighted in different colours based on the status (e.g. green, amber, yellow, red?). At a glance I could assess the strength of the data! 6) I would love to see the multimedia properties to be able to display the content of *.rtf, *.doc, *.pdf files which are associated with multimedia records (e.g. by using OLE or by launching the appropriate application on double-click). 7) I would love the capability of saving diagrams to a document type (e.g. .pdf, .jpeg or .tif). On a couple of occasions I have wanted to share my researches with friends and found that my only solution was to print out a hard copy. In the future I would like to put some diagram up on a web site. For anyone who reads this and is considering using FH, these are my top ten reasons why I like this software: 1) It does seem to be 100% GEDCOM compatible - as this is the dominant standard then I think it is most likely to be future-proof 2) Its capability of merging GEDCOM data sources is absolutely awesome and under complete user control 3) Its diagramming facilities are the best I have ever seen - I especially love the capability of linking photos and the way in which the diagrams are "interactive", i.e. you can add or delete individuals within the diagram. 4) It is very fast 5) The query capabilities are superb 6) The display of all elements of a record and associated links in a grid structure (see the individual properties dialog and choose the "all" tab), which can be "drilled into" offers complete access to all the facts in the system at a glance 7) Automatic Source Citation is a real boon - few genealogy applications assist source references in the way that FH does, yet it is widely known that a family history is only as good as the sources provided 8) The manual written in the form of a tutorial rather than a features list got me up and running quickly (although it is essential that the new user goes through tutorial as FH is less than intuitive for users more accustomed to applications like Family Tree Maker) 9) It is very stable (I am running windows XP) 10) The on-line discussion group offers a good environment for feedback and suggests that the authors are open to ideas and meeting the needs of users Apart from the suggestions above I do suggest that new users are aware that: 1) The power of FH does lead to a greater learning curve than some of the other applications on the market - if you don't make the investment of some time to learn how to use the software, then you may find it hard going! 2) FH more probably suits people with a reasonable level of confidence in computing as some areas (such as creating new queries) are more akin to a data analysis paradigm than a document/reporting approach 3) The reporting capabilities are fairly poor - with standard individual, family reports etc being absent. This is being addressed in a free upgrade to all users, but if you must have this capability today then just be aware that it isn't there yet! Being in the software application business myself I can appreciate the work involved in creating FH and the elegance of the solution provided. Congratulations. Niall Enright -------------------------------------------- Niall Enright Group Director Enviros Software Solutions Telegraphic House Salford Quays Manchester M50 3XW UK Tel: +44 (0) 161 874 3611 Fax: +44 (0) 161 848 0181 Mob: +44 (0) 7976 263 716 Email: Niall.Enright(a)Enviros.com Web: www.enviros.com/montage -------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: John Hanson [mailto:john.hanson@one-name.org] Sent: 29 August 2002 06:36 To: FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS-L(a)rootsweb.com Subject: [FHU] Problem with queries Simon I have set up a query to try and find from my file all of those people that should be alive in 1901. This includes the names of the spouses as well. I have a question. 1 I have included a line in the query to exclude people who died before 1901 (It doesn't seem worth looking for them) but there are still some included. The query specifies only the year and not an exact date These appear to be people where the date shows as something like "before 1881" which obviously means that I have found the family on the 1881 census and the persons spouse was shown as a widow(er). Is this a problem with the program?? Regards John Hanson Member of the Society of Genealogists (www.sog.org.uk) Member of the Guild of One Name Studies (www.one-name.org) ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237

17 years, 5 months

Sundry minor items

by Simon Orde

Peter Bolsom asked >> How do I remove an unwanted file name from the drop down list of the 4 most recently opened files that you get when you open File ? These work the same way in many Windows applications (e.g. most versions of Microsoft Word). They simply list the last 4 files you opened. If you open a file using the File>Open command it should move to the top of the list (if not already there), and the remaining files should then move down, and the 4th should drop off the end. So you can use File>Open to open 4 different files you want to use. Actually, you're not usually suppose to worry which 4 files are listed there. Its just intended to be for convenience. Geoff Lowe said (about family tree diagrams) >> I'd like to be able to have a basic tree of names and then add individual bits of information such as dates of birth, marriage, burial, etc; the present format is a bit restrictive.. You can define your own "text schemes", Geoff, which will allow you to display whatever information you want in diagrams. You can have just names, or any of the other items of information you mention (or, any other items of information you have in your file, for that matter), appearing the boxes in diagrams. Family Historian is very flexible about how you define what can appear in boxes (plus it comes with quite a few 'standard' text schemes that you can use). Have a look at the User Manual: especially the section on "Text Schemes" (p. 35 of Chapter 3) and the section "Create Text Schemes" (p. 65 of Chapter 7). Brian Teece wrote >> Can you please advise me on the correct use of - 1 RESI 1 WILL 1 CENS @...@ FH is rejecting these as invalid lines. I've talked about the CENS tag in another mail. RESI and WILL should be valid in the context of an Individual record, but not elsewhere. If they're being rejected, its probably because they're being used invalidly in these contexts. Could you email me a short sample (including the full record - i.e. the line that starts with a 0) so that I can see the context of use, and work out what the problem is? Also, which version of Pedigree produced this? And what version of GEDCOM does it generate? 5.5?

17 years, 5 months

GEDCOM problems with Pedigree

by Simon Orde

Brian Teece wrote > I've been trying to transfer source and census information across from > Pedigree but FH rejects the coding, a sample of which is given below. I'd be > grateful if you could explain where the errors are and what needs to be done > to make it acceptable to FH. > I appreciate that the census data is using cusom tags - will FH accept these > if they are changed in some way, or is there another way around the problem? > > Kind regards, > Brian Teece > > 0 @I2547@ INDI > 1 BIRT > 2 SOUR @11@ > 0 @11@ SOUR > 1 NOTE Parish Register & IGI > > 0 @I5551@ INDI > 1 CENS @295@ > 0 @295@ CENS > 1 CNUM 300 > 1 CYEA 1881 > 1 CADD Cobridge Rd,Shelton,Hanley > 1 CPER TEECE Harriet Head W 67 Broseley > 1814 > 2 CONT TEECE Benjamin Son U 47 Stone Miner Broseley > 1834 > 2 CONT TEECE George H. GSon 16 App.in Pottery Hanley > 1865 Brian, the census stuff that Pedigree is not valid GEDCOM. The line "0 @295@ CENS" defines a record of type 'CENS'. There is no such record in GEDCOM (not in GEDCOM 5.5 at any rate, which has been the standard for about 7 years now). Nor does GEDCOM contain any provision for defining your own record types. If you want to try to recover this information, the best thing would be to try to find someone with a later version of Pedigree that does a better job of exporting the data. Failing that, you could try editing the GEDCOM file directly and converting all your Census records into Note records. If you want to do this, as always, please make sure that you *backup* all files involved before you try any of this out, and check the results very carefully before starting to make use of a file that you've edited in this way! (and, again, this is all at your own risk if you do it). To edit the GEDCOM file to convert CENS records to NOTE records, you would first have to find all occurrences of lines that look like 0 @295@ CENS and change them to 0 @295@ NOTE The number between the @ chars must remain unchanged, in each case. This is a little tricky. You could search for all occurrences of "@ CENS" and replace this with "@ NOTE", but you would need to check that "@ CENS" never occurred in a different type of context. Alternatively, if you want to, Microsoft Word and other editors allow you to use "Wildcards" (sometimes also called regular expressions), which would make it possible to do the search and replace in a single pass (not easy unless you're already familiar with using Wildcards), specifying something effectively like this: Find me a line beginning with "0 @" followed by any text, followed by "@ CENS"; and then keep it all the same but replace the final CENS with NOTE (In Word 97, open the Replace dialog, click 'Wild cards', set Find What to "(^l0 \@[0-9]@\@) CENS" without the quotes and set Replace to "\1 NOTE", without the quotes. Experiment with this yourself, to make sure it does what it should, before you rely on it!). Having done that you would then want to find all occurrences of lines containing "1 CENS @295@" (or something other record number other than 295) and replace them with lines containing "1 NOTE @295@". Again, you could do this by searching for 1 CENS @" and replacing it with "1 NOTE @" as long as you were sure that the search text did not occur in the wrong context anywhere. That should take you forward a bit, but you would find that your new Note records contained no text, and had lots of 'star-burst' fields (unrecognised fields that F.H. has loaded and treats as text, but doesn't actually know what the fields are supposed to be used for) in them with the Census info. CNUM, CYEA, CADD and CPER and for example, are not valid GEDCOM. You could use this data to manually edit the census records over time, to move the data into the text portion of the note. Alternatively, when you do the conversion, you could if you wanted to try changing this at that point. e.g. when you edited the GEDCOM file you could change 0 @295@ CENS 1 CNUM 300 1 CYEA 1881 to 0 @295 NOTE Census - 300 - 1881 or something similar. You could experiment with a sample file, perhaps, and see what works best in practice. Good luck. Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer

17 years, 5 months

[FHU} GEDCOM

by Brian Teece

Hi Simon, Can you please advise me on the correct use of - 1 RESI 1 WILL 1 CENS @...@ FH is rejecting these as invalid lines. Thanks Brian Teece

17 years, 5 months

Removal of file names

by Peter Bolson

Simon First just to say that Brian Teece has now kindly fixed my problem of missing spaces in my Generations GEDCOM file. He replaced nearly 4000 instances of CONC with CONT so everything is now fine. How do I remove an unwanted file name from the drop down list of the 4 most recently opened files that you get when you open File ? I have deleted the files themselves but the names remain and prevent me going straight to other files. Regards Peter

17 years, 5 months

RE: [FHU] New user, thoughts, wish list, and use of notes

by David W Pacey

Geoffers, Highlight the source on the sources tab, then, on the on the view menu, select "Record Links" That will list every record linked to that source. All you have to do then is select your record from the rsulting window. Hope this helps. Regards, Dave Pacey -----Original Message-----8< snip Being a new user of FH, I may not yet have found the function; but if it doesn't exist, I'd like to be able to open a source and then show what individual records are connected to it. E.G a census return with several members of a household would be linked to several individual records, I'd like to be able to access any of those records directly from the source. However, for a new programme I'd give it a mark of 9 out of 10. Geoffers Charlbury, Oxfordshire ______________________________

17 years, 5 months

Re: Problem with Notes in Generations 6.0

by Peter Bolson

Simon I had 2 very kind offers ( from Brian Teece and from Jackie in Kidderminster ) to run my GEDCOM file through Generations 8.0, and it worked ! The notes now appear in the right place, which is brilliant. The only slight defect is that quite a few of the spaces between words are missing, but that doesn't really matter too much. Once again thanks for your help and support. Regards Peter Cumbria.

17 years, 5 months

New user, thoughts, wish list, and use of notes

by Geoff Lowe

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Partridge" <mjp(a)dsl.pipex.com> [The one area that puzzles me, however, is the correct use of Notes (as appearing in the Notes Tab on the Record screen). How and where would this differ from a source?] I think this is a case of using it to suit your own needs. I use it to add things that I need to do, things that puzzle me - and for individuals who I don't want to carry on with more detailed research, I add a precis of what is known about them. In the sources notes, I add the Custom ID of individuals mentioned in the source and if there are any married women, add their maiden names - that sort of stuff. I've had FH for just on a week and I like it. I like the display of individual records and the switch through the various tabs. I like being able to add sources independently of individual records and to then attach them later. This layout is better than other programmes. I have two projects, first a one-name study of my surname in Norfolk; second a study of all data (i.e. all register, AT, BT, census, subsidy, muster, manor records etc) relating to a single village in Norfolk as part of a local history study. I use Custodian II as well to store data and find it indispensable - and if possible would really like updates of FH to move a little towards Custodian in providing better analysis of sources. Being a new user of FH, I may not yet have found the function; but if it doesn't exist, I'd like to be able to open a source and then show what individual records are connected to it. E.G a census return with several members of a household would be linked to several individual records, I'd like to be able to access any of those records directly from the source. Improvement in what can be done with family tree diagrams would be welcomed with time and future upgrades, for example, I'd like to be able to have a basic tree of names and then add individual bits of information such as dates of birth, marriage, burial, etc; the present format is a bit restrictive.. This was the one thing I liked about Family Tree Maker (There wasn't much else to like about it). However, for a new programme I'd give it a mark of 9 out of 10. Geoffers Charlbury, Oxfordshire

17 years, 5 months

How to Fix GEDCOM Notes problems with Generations 6.0

by Jeanne Bunting UK

Simon, >(5) Search for all occurrences of "1 NOTE". You will have to change each of these manually. They will be preceded by a line that starts with a 0. e.g.< Not if you use Word to do the replacements. (It won't work with Wordpad or Notepad) You FIND "NOTE^p1 " and leave the REPLACE box blank. "^p" represents the end of line (carriage return) marker. You are removing NOTE from the first line, the end of line marker and the 1 and space from the begining of the second line. And the rest of you who are faint hearted, Simon said it is not as difficult as it looks. It isn't! Fifteen minutes at the very most to change one GEDCOM file no matter how many people there are in it. And the process is automatic - if you also use what I have suggested above as well as what Simon has suggested. Three 'passes' through the file is all that is required.. Jeanne Bunting née Attersley

17 years, 5 months

The correct use of Notes?

by Mike Partridge

I'm a relatively new user of FH and am just getting to the stage where I can fully appreciate it's flexibility and power. The one area that puzzles me, however, is the correct use of Notes (as appearing in the Notes Tab on the Record screen). How and where would this differ from a source? Is it intended simply as a place to note questions or areas to follow up etc. or am I missing something really important here? Overall it's a great program with many unique (or nearly so!) features. The main draw back that I can see is the limited options for printing various styles of trees and individual/ family reports - which are very useful for sharing information with family members. Perhaps version 2.1 will rectify this to some extent. In the meantime the answer seem to be to use FH to create the gedcom file and then import it into another program where there are more options to produce trees etc. The Diagrams are great though for viewing records and it's in the area of creating and recording the basic information that this program scores so highly. Simplicity itself! What programs or Gedcom utilities do people find best for manipulating the file produced by FH? Does anyone have any views on Tree Draw as an option? Mike _________________________ www.george-macdonald.com www.digital-disciple.com

17 years, 5 months

Re: [FHU] How to Fix GEDCOM Notes problems with Generations 6.0

by Peter Bolson

Simon Many thanks for replying. I am afraid it all sounds beyond my capabilities, and in any case I just want to get on with my family history researches. Also I am not clear as to whether I would have to edit all of my 6000+ notes individually. If so I couldn't even start to think about it ! Am I right in assuming that, as the fault lies with Generations 6.0, then even your upgrade when it comes will not be able to deal with the problem ? Which would leave me with the choice of buying Generations 8.0 in order to use FH ( a rather expensive option ), or abandoning FH all together ( or at least only using it for its charts ). Regards Peter ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Orde" <SimonOrde(a)family-historian.co.uk> To: <FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS-L(a)rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 11:32 AM Subject: [FHU] How to Fix GEDCOM Notes problems with Generations 6.0 > Peter Bolson mentioned the problem he has with Notes records generated by > Generations version 6.0. He sent me an example of it. The problem in a > nutshell is that this version of Generations is generating invalid and > incorrect GEDCOM for Notes records. It appears that they fixed this bug in > later versions, but that doesn't help version 6.0 owners. The best solution > is to find someone who has a later version of Generations who can open your > Generations files and do the export for you. However, if you don't know > anyone with a later version of Generations, here is an alternative solution > (not for the faint-hearted): > > The problem is sufficiently severe that the only way to solve it is to edit > the GEDCOM file itself directly. You can do this using a text editor such > as Notepad or Wordpad. For the purposes of this example, you need a text > editor which lets you do Search/Replace, which Wordpad does, and Notepad > doesn't. So use Wordpad if you don't have anything better (Wordpad is a > free accessory that comes with Windows). Bear in mind that GEDCOM files are > text files so you can use any text editor you want (as long as it can cope > with the file size). > > Before trying this, here are 3 thoughts: > (A) PLEASE make sure you make a backup copy of your file before you try > changing it in a text editor!!!! > (B) The instructions are fairly detailed, but on the whole make it seem more > complex than it is. However, its probably not worth attempting unless you > are at least reasonably self-confident about it, know how to select multiple > lines in a text file, know what 'Cut', 'copy' and 'paste' mean, and can make > sense of the instructions! > (C) This is all "at your own risk". If you make a mess of it, and haven't > kept safe copies of your original files, please don't complain to me about > it. > > Now, suppose you have a note record with text that reads: "I was born in the > year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that > country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull." > When you save this to GEDCOM it should be saved in a format that looks like > this: > > 0 @N1@ NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good > family, though not of that coun > 1 CONC try, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at > Hull. > > GEDCOM lines always begin with a number. Records (e.g. Note records) always > start with a 0. Other lines have numbers that are bigger than 0. These > lines are all parts of records. Long notes have to be split over several > GEDCOM lines, because GEDCOM lines must not be longer than 255 characters > (actually this particular note could fit onto one line, but I've split it > over 2 to illustrate how that works). > > The problem is that Generations version 6.0 would not generate the correct > GEDCOM. Instead it would produce something like the following for this > note: > > 0 @N1@ NOTE > 1 NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, > though not of that coun > 2 CONC try, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at > Hull. > > Which, in computing terms, is nothing like what it should be. > > So - what you need to do is this: > > *** Tips if you use Wordpad *** > i) You will need to set the File type to 'All documents' in the File Open > dialog, to see GEDCOM files. > ii) Make sure you set the Wordwrap option to 'No wrap' (View/Options menu, > then Text tab). > iii) Create the New File as a "Text document" in Step (3). > iv) When you save the file, make sure you save it as a "Text document" > v) When searching for "1 NOTE" in step (5), press F3 to repeat the last > search > ************************** > > (1) Locate the section of your file that contains the Note records. Note > records (like all records) occur on lines that start with a 0. They are > followed by an @ char, then a letter 'N', then a number, another @ char, > then the word NOTE (e.g. 0 @N1@ NOTE). A Note record ends where the next > record starts (ie. at the next line that starts with a 0). > (2) Select all the lines that belong to Note records (all Note records > should be grouped together) and use Cut to move them into the clipboard. > Type a new line with just 3 asterisks in it, to show where the Note records > had been. Save the file. > (3) Create a new file and paste the Note records into it. > (4) In the new text file, use your editors Search and Replace facility to > change all occurrences of the text "2 CONC" to "1 CONC" (use Match Case for > greater safety). Also similarly change all occurrences of "2 CONT" to "1 > CONT". > (5) Search for all occurrences of "1 NOTE". You will have to change each of > these manually. They will be preceded by a line that starts with a 0. e.g. > > 0 @N1@ NOTE > 1 NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, > though not of that coun > > You need to make these 2 lines into 1 line by deleting everying following > the start of the word NOTE on the 1st line up to the start of the word NOTE > on the 2nd line. So that this example would become. > > 0 @N1@ NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good > family, though not of that coun > > Theoretically doing this might mean that the new line was now over the 255 > character limit, if the 2nd line was exactly 255 characters long. However, > in practice Generations appears to keep its lines much shorter than that, so > I don't think this should be a problem. > > (6) finally, select all of the text in the new file. Copy it to the > clipboard. > (7) Re-open your original file. Locate the line with 3 asterisks and delete > that line. > (8) Place your cursor at the start of the next line and click Paste. > (9) Make sure that the line you used in (8) is still a separate line, and > hasn't got appended to the end of a Note record line. If it has, add a line > break (use the Enter key) to put it back on a line of its own. > (10) Save your changes. > (11) Open the file in Family Historian and check it *very carefully* to see > if it now looks OK! Try looking at your Note records in the Property Dialog > to make sure that everything is exactly as it should be. > > > Bearing in mind that you can use 'Replace All' to do all the replacements in > step (4) in one go, this shouldn't necessarily take as long as you might > think. The longer bit is step (5) where you have to manually merge 2 lines > for each note record. How long that would take would depend on how many > Note records you have. > > Incidentally, if you don't have many Note records, and you happen to know > that CONT and CONC only ever occur within Note records and nowhere else, > then you could do steps (4) and (5) on the original file without ever having > to go to the trouble of first isolating the Note records by cutting and > pasting them into another file. > > *** FINAL NOTE: this version of Generations also uses CONC incorrectly > everywhere - which means that you will always lose a space character > wherever you see a CONC, and 2 words will be fused together with no space > between them. This is a less serious, but nevertheless very annoying > problem. The GEDCOM spec says that you must never split a line (using CONC) > at a space character, and this version of Generations only ever splits lines > at space characters using CONC. If you wanted to, you could go some way to > solving this problem by modifying your search/replace in step (4) to replace > "2 CONC " with "1 CONC _" (there is one space after the CONC in each case). > This way, you will get an underscore character wherever you should have a > space, making the missing space characters easier to locate later, and > making the text easier to read. > > Good luck. > > Simon Orde > List Administrator and Family Historian designer > > > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >

17 years, 5 months

Re. How to Fix GEDCOM Notes problems with Generations 6.0

by Simon Orde

P.S. In the previous email there are several lines which should appear as a single line, but which have been automatically split (by my email program) over 2 lines. For example, 0 @N1@ NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that coun should be one GEDCOM line, and was originally written by me as one line, but got split by the email program over 2. All the examples of GEDCOM lines are like this. Whenever you see a GEDCOM line, bear in mind that it should always start with a number (e.g. 0, 1, 2, etc) and mentally put it back onto a single line as you read it. Sorry about that. Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer

17 years, 5 months

How to Fix GEDCOM Notes problems with Generations 6.0

by Simon Orde

Peter Bolson mentioned the problem he has with Notes records generated by Generations version 6.0. He sent me an example of it. The problem in a nutshell is that this version of Generations is generating invalid and incorrect GEDCOM for Notes records. It appears that they fixed this bug in later versions, but that doesn't help version 6.0 owners. The best solution is to find someone who has a later version of Generations who can open your Generations files and do the export for you. However, if you don't know anyone with a later version of Generations, here is an alternative solution (not for the faint-hearted): The problem is sufficiently severe that the only way to solve it is to edit the GEDCOM file itself directly. You can do this using a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad. For the purposes of this example, you need a text editor which lets you do Search/Replace, which Wordpad does, and Notepad doesn't. So use Wordpad if you don't have anything better (Wordpad is a free accessory that comes with Windows). Bear in mind that GEDCOM files are text files so you can use any text editor you want (as long as it can cope with the file size). Before trying this, here are 3 thoughts: (A) PLEASE make sure you make a backup copy of your file before you try changing it in a text editor!!!! (B) The instructions are fairly detailed, but on the whole make it seem more complex than it is. However, its probably not worth attempting unless you are at least reasonably self-confident about it, know how to select multiple lines in a text file, know what 'Cut', 'copy' and 'paste' mean, and can make sense of the instructions! (C) This is all "at your own risk". If you make a mess of it, and haven't kept safe copies of your original files, please don't complain to me about it. Now, suppose you have a note record with text that reads: "I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull." When you save this to GEDCOM it should be saved in a format that looks like this: 0 @N1@ NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that coun 1 CONC try, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. GEDCOM lines always begin with a number. Records (e.g. Note records) always start with a 0. Other lines have numbers that are bigger than 0. These lines are all parts of records. Long notes have to be split over several GEDCOM lines, because GEDCOM lines must not be longer than 255 characters (actually this particular note could fit onto one line, but I've split it over 2 to illustrate how that works). The problem is that Generations version 6.0 would not generate the correct GEDCOM. Instead it would produce something like the following for this note: 0 @N1@ NOTE 1 NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that coun 2 CONC try, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. Which, in computing terms, is nothing like what it should be. So - what you need to do is this: *** Tips if you use Wordpad *** i) You will need to set the File type to 'All documents' in the File Open dialog, to see GEDCOM files. ii) Make sure you set the Wordwrap option to 'No wrap' (View/Options menu, then Text tab). iii) Create the New File as a "Text document" in Step (3). iv) When you save the file, make sure you save it as a "Text document" v) When searching for "1 NOTE" in step (5), press F3 to repeat the last search ************************** (1) Locate the section of your file that contains the Note records. Note records (like all records) occur on lines that start with a 0. They are followed by an @ char, then a letter 'N', then a number, another @ char, then the word NOTE (e.g. 0 @N1@ NOTE). A Note record ends where the next record starts (ie. at the next line that starts with a 0). (2) Select all the lines that belong to Note records (all Note records should be grouped together) and use Cut to move them into the clipboard. Type a new line with just 3 asterisks in it, to show where the Note records had been. Save the file. (3) Create a new file and paste the Note records into it. (4) In the new text file, use your editors Search and Replace facility to change all occurrences of the text "2 CONC" to "1 CONC" (use Match Case for greater safety). Also similarly change all occurrences of "2 CONT" to "1 CONT". (5) Search for all occurrences of "1 NOTE". You will have to change each of these manually. They will be preceded by a line that starts with a 0. e.g. 0 @N1@ NOTE 1 NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that coun You need to make these 2 lines into 1 line by deleting everying following the start of the word NOTE on the 1st line up to the start of the word NOTE on the 2nd line. So that this example would become. 0 @N1@ NOTE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that coun Theoretically doing this might mean that the new line was now over the 255 character limit, if the 2nd line was exactly 255 characters long. However, in practice Generations appears to keep its lines much shorter than that, so I don't think this should be a problem. (6) finally, select all of the text in the new file. Copy it to the clipboard. (7) Re-open your original file. Locate the line with 3 asterisks and delete that line. (8) Place your cursor at the start of the next line and click Paste. (9) Make sure that the line you used in (8) is still a separate line, and hasn't got appended to the end of a Note record line. If it has, add a line break (use the Enter key) to put it back on a line of its own. (10) Save your changes. (11) Open the file in Family Historian and check it *very carefully* to see if it now looks OK! Try looking at your Note records in the Property Dialog to make sure that everything is exactly as it should be. Bearing in mind that you can use 'Replace All' to do all the replacements in step (4) in one go, this shouldn't necessarily take as long as you might think. The longer bit is step (5) where you have to manually merge 2 lines for each note record. How long that would take would depend on how many Note records you have. Incidentally, if you don't have many Note records, and you happen to know that CONT and CONC only ever occur within Note records and nowhere else, then you could do steps (4) and (5) on the original file without ever having to go to the trouble of first isolating the Note records by cutting and pasting them into another file. *** FINAL NOTE: this version of Generations also uses CONC incorrectly everywhere - which means that you will always lose a space character wherever you see a CONC, and 2 words will be fused together with no space between them. This is a less serious, but nevertheless very annoying problem. The GEDCOM spec says that you must never split a line (using CONC) at a space character, and this version of Generations only ever splits lines at space characters using CONC. If you wanted to, you could go some way to solving this problem by modifying your search/replace in step (4) to replace "2 CONC " with "1 CONC _" (there is one space after the CONC in each case). This way, you will get an underscore character wherever you should have a space, making the missing space characters easier to locate later, and making the text easier to read. Good luck. Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer

17 years, 5 months

Re. Printing the manual

by Simon Orde

Lesley, just a thought, but is your version of Acrobat Reader an old one? If its any earlier than 5.0, I would recommend upgrading it to 5.0, which you can do by following the usual installation instructions (see the ReadMe file, in the Family Historian section of the Start\Programs menu). Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer

17 years, 5 months

Re: [FHU] Genealogy Software Experience

by david_meredith

I picked up on FHU following a review in Family Tree Magazine (a UK publication) and was intrigued by the 'Windows Explorer' type format for displaying individual data - not to mention the reviewer's enthusiasm for the 'charting' capabilities. Despite the lack of 'reports' I decided to give it a go. I should perhaps make the point here that previously I was a devotee of Family Origins. Sad to say this piece of software appears to have run its course and reading between the lines it seems that the current owners may be more interested in pushing Family Tree Maker - perhaps a case of buying-out the competition and letting it die a slow death. So despite the knowledge that the original author of FO is developing a new piece of software, I for one was on the lookout for an alternative. As I have stated on a previous posting to this list, I wouldn't be without it now and I have tried all the main competitors from the Master Genealogist through to Family Tree Maker. If you have tried a sample of the available genealogy software programmes on the market today you may agree with me that they appear to be merely playing 'catch-up' with each other, with offerings which seem to be based around tried and tested formats that lack very little innovation. The fact is though that most of these additions are purely cosmetic and when truth be told, they are of little practical use to the average researcher. Lets be honest, how many times do we use the numerous reports that are now available in these programmes? What the genuine average family researcher has been crying out for is a programme that is tailored to, and indeed addresses, his or her fundamental research and data recording needs. Being able to produce a time-line or a break-down of the average number of children per family unit is hardly relevant when you are sitting in an archive or library trying to find your kin, nor for that matter is it relevant when you get back home to sit down at your computer to enter a day's findings on your system, not to mention when you come to pass on your findings to a fellow researcher. It seems to me that we, the family genealogists, have been dictated to for far to long by 'market forces', to the determent of our practical needs. Currently, FHU lacks some fundamental reports - Simone has put his hands up to this omission and is in the process of rectifying the position with the offer of a free upgrade - so no quibbles there. Reports aside, I believe FHU already provides a fresh and long overdue fresh approach to recording and displaying family data. If I could be granted a say in development wishes, they would be to focus his current annotative approach to genealogy software on putting himself in the shoes of the average family researcher and asking 'how can I can assist the family researcher to keep track of research in hand - i.e. those chores we label under 'things-to-do-files' - and what about 'correspondence by letter or email' not forgetting the sharp end with 'what printouts or pro-formas' would best assist researchers when they go out to actual archives or libraries'. I've rattled on enough, so what do you think - are we to succumb to 'whizbangs and bells', or should we be pushing for software formats that meet our needs? Doesn't FHU provide a ray of hope? David Meredith Nottingham, England

17 years, 5 months

Genealogy Software Experience

by Jim Winfrey

I'm interested in what software FH users switched from and why. I presently use Legacy. My main interest in FH was its use of Gedcom directly (implying that I could port my data to any other Gedcom capable software). I share my data with a large ring of fellow researchers, all using different programs. What other capabilities of the software are selling points? Thanks,

17 years, 5 months

Printing the manual

by Lesley Arber

Hi Phil I was trying to print from the Acrobat help file, but I have now found out if I check the 'print as image' box it will work, although it prints a bit slower. thanks ---- Original Message ----- From: "Lesley Arber" <l.arber(a)btinternet.com> To: <FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS-L(a)rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 10:31 PM Subject: [FHU] (FH) Printing the manual > Hello > > I'm a new user of the FH software and would like to print a hard copy of the manual, but it will only print a series of minute boxes instead of the correct font. I did try the export as text function, as well as selecting all and copying straight to word, and although the text is there you lose all the 'prettys'. > Any ideas please. > Lesley

17 years, 5 months

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FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS August 2002