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Started back at the tree and have just realised something that I don't know how to stop (No smart comments about there being lots of things ). while entering some data I realised that a couple of the individuals I had entered had ages older than they actually were at death. With FTM I just had to enter 'dead' in the date of death field and it stopped the age count after the last fact that had been entered. When I tried this in FH I just get a message saying it is not a valid date, is there a way to do this in FH.
I presume you mean the years since Birth Date shown in brackets.
It is not strictly speaking an Age but as I say the calculated years since Birth.
They are only shown like that in the Property Box on the Facts tab.
They don't exist in the FH/GEDCOM database, and can be inhibited in Reports.
Post-Death facts such as Burial and Probate have their Age box inhibited and that also inhibits the years since Birth.
Specifically what facts are suffering the problem?
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
Problem solved. Thought I had read all the bits I could find in Getting The Most...… but I had missed a bit. I looked through them again and found I could add anything in the Died date field by putting the word in double inverted commas. So if I add "Dead" in to the field, it adds dead in the died field, stopping the age count. Just realised I can add a Death fact with nothing in it and it does the same thing.
I don't believe entering "Dead" into the Date field or leaving it blank has any effect on later facts calculated years since Birth. Yes, it will inhibit it on the Death fact as years since Birth cannot be calculated, but later facts that have a Date will calculate years since Birth.
Maybe what you are seeing is an Individual with no Birth Date, so years since Birth cannot be calculated for any facts.
Remember, the calculation needs a Birth Date and a current fact Date with its Age field enabled.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
It doesn't make any changes to previous ages, I was just looking for a way to stop FH showing the age of someone today, that was already dead.
I had noticed my mother was showing as 82 yrs old (she died at 49), this was due to me still not having added her date of death, which would have been fine as I know the date she died and that would sort that out. I was more worried that as I entered some relations that I know their date of birth but not their date of death, I was going to end up with people showing as being in their 90's in FH where they had maybe died in their 70's twenty years ago.
I assume you are referring to the age displayed in the Focus window if someone has a date of birth but not death. If you know that someone has died but you don't know the date or place of death, simply create a death fact with no other details. You don't need to enter anything in the date field for the fact. The existence of the fact shows they have died. The Focus Window will then display 'Died' rather than a current age.
To create a death fact with no details, use the Facts tab of the Property box and click the Add Fact button and select Death. Then don't enter anything else. Alternatively on the Main tab you could enter a date and click the tab key to ensure the event gets created, then immediately delete the date again. The 'empty' death event will remain.
William, I am very confused about what problem you are experiencing.
Are you talking about the Age shown in the Focus Window on the left?
If there is a Birth event Date but noDeath event entered, then FH assumes the person is alive and will show their Age today, but only if it is less than Tools > Preferences > Estimates > Maximum life span.
As soon as you enter a Death event (without a Date) then the Age is not shown.
When you enter the Death event Date then the Focus Window says (aged ...).
So what exactly is the problem?
Perhaps you are only entering data via the Main tab rather than the Facts tab, because the Main tab does not allow you to enter a Death event without a Date or Place.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
You both describe and solved my problem perfectly, the same as in my post starting Problem Solved. As I had said, in FTM I just added died into the Died: date field and that stopped it showing ages of people who were dead as if they were still alive today. As you both say to get the same result in FH I have to add a blank death event until I eventually get the date of death. As I, was looking for a result similar to the FTM way, I had went down the road of trying to find a way to add a word into a date field and while trying out the methods I realised a blank death event did the same thing.
Thanks again for helping me with this, even though I had solved the problem by the time the cavalry arrived this time
UPDATE: Just realised that just making a blank Death event doesn't fully solve the problem. When looking at the Focus window (Spouses & Children), if you set Person A with the blank Death event's father or mother as the Focus Person. Person A is now showing as a child in the Focus Window and when you look at their details their is nothing showing in the Death Column which is obvious as Person A has a blank Death Event and gives the impressing they are still alive. To solve this I went back to the original solution I found and added "DECEASED" into the Died: date field and hey presto DECEASED shows up in the Death column when viewing Person A as a child. If you do this before you add the blank death event, it adds the Death event for you.
Personally I don't think that a blank in the death column suggests that someone is still alive. It just means you don't have any information about whether or when they died. If you had a blank in the birth column it wouldn't mean they had never been born!
It is certainly not as misleading as having a calculated age displayed if you have no death event recorded. By the way, you can cutomise the Focus Window display so that calculated ages are not shown at all. Click Customize View in the top right and then untick Ages. This would save you having to manually create empty death events for numerous people.
I totally agree about having a calculated age displayed can be confusing. I only plan on using this on people I know for sure are dead and as I am redoing my tree adding DECEASED to the field as I input all of the other information isn't going to be an issue. I do like the calculated age feature, so I wouldn't stop it from doing its thing.
Just be aware that entering text into the date field will produce odd effects in narrative reports. If you look at the Sentence in the Property box for a death event where you have entered 'DECEASED' you will find it says 'He died "DECEASED"'. To correct this you will have to adjust the narrative sentence in every such case, to read something like 'He is known to be deceased'.
Thanks for that Lorna, Probably not much worse than "He died" as a sentence but I will remember to change the narrative sentence (and then change it back once I eventually find the date )
). while entering some data I realised that a couple of the individuals I had entered had ages older than they actually were at death. With FTM I just had to enter 'dead' in the date of death field and it stopped the age count after the last fact that had been entered. When I tried this in FH I just get a message saying it is not a valid date, is there a way to do this in FH.
