* Importing from 'Generations'

[tatewise]

Did the Clean Up Notes plugin have the desired effect of bringing the note text local to the Research Notes facts?

In the Records Window on the Notes tab, are there many Note Records left?

Again I think screenshots are the only way I can appreciate what you are looking at.
A screenshot of the Generations details, perhaps the person with ID 49, who has two things in doubt.
A screenshot of the FH Property Box All tab fully expanded for the same person.
To fully expand, double-click the person's name on the top row twice.
The first double-click fully collapses. The second fully expands so there are no [+] buttons only [-] buttons.
You may need to be creative to show the appropriate section of the All tab by using Dates or some other details.

[Paul Wigan]

Hello Mike and thank you for yesterday's reply.

As this board will only allow three three attachments per post, I am going to have to answer in several stages.

If we start with my first example of apparently missing data, for (ID 250), I attach :-

the facts tab from Generation, which has an entry for Minister at baptism ;

Capture1 - 21 March 2022.JPG (50.99 KiB) Viewed 2875 times

the FH Property Box All tab fully expanded ;

Capture4 - 21 March 2022.JPG (176.24 KiB) Viewed 2875 times

Thanks.

Paul

[Paul Wigan]

Hi Mike

If we start with my first example of apparently missing data, for (ID 250), I attach :-

the facts tab from Generations, which has entries for Minister at baptism, Witness at wedding and Banns ;

Capture2 - 21 March 2022.JPG (55.22 KiB) Viewed 2871 times

the FH Property Box All tab fully expanded, which spreads across two captures ;

Capture5 - 21 March 2022.JPG (184.57 KiB) Viewed 2871 times

Capture6 - 21 March 2022.JPG (232.49 KiB) Viewed 2871 times

Thanks.

Paul

[Paul Wigan]

Hello Mike

> In the Records Window on the Notes tab, are there many Note Records left?

Two - attached ;

Capture7 - 21 March 2022.JPG (48.27 KiB) Viewed 2872 times

Thanks.

Paul

[tatewise]

Paul, before going any further, can we check the GEDCOM file exported from Generations.
It should still exist quite separate from the FH Project GEDCOM. If not then create it again using the same command.

Open that GEDCOM file in a plain text editor such as Windows Notepad.
Search to find a line 0 @I250@ INDI that starts the record for this William Francis Rowland GREENWOOD.
You should see obvious entries for the facts Birth (BIRT), Baptism (BAPM), Residence (RESI), Death (DEAT), & Burial (BURI) plus HIST for the Research Notes and ending with the start of the next record such as 0 @I251@ INDI
Is there any evidence of the Minister at baptism?

Please post a copy of that fragment of GEDCOM (and do likewise for any other missing items that need investigating).

[Paul Wigan]

Hi Mike


>> Did the Clean Up Notes plugin have the desired effect of bringing the note text local to the Research Notes facts?

Can you explain what you mean by that please ?


>> Paul, before going any further, can we check the GEDCOM file exported from Generations.
>> It should still exist quite separate from the FH Project GEDCOM. If not then create it again using the same command.

OK, just to be sure, that is the original Gedcom before the Generations Pre Load Source Clean Plugin was run ?


Thanks.


Paul

[Paul Wigan]

Hi Mike

On the basis that you want the original Gedcom before and Plugins have been run, I've pulled the data below.

Thanks.

Paul


0 @I250@ INDI
1 NAME William Francis Rowland /GREENWOOD/
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE BET JUL 1846 AND SEP 1846
2 PLAC Oxford District
1 BAPM
2 DATE 16 JUL 1846
2 PLAC St Peter le Bailey Oxford (Privately)
1 DEAT
2 DATE BET JUL 1846 AND SEP 1846
2 PLAC Oxford District
2 NOTE aged 3 weeks
1 BURI
2 DATE 24 JUL 1846
2 PLAC St Peter le Bailey Oxford
1 FAMC @F68@
1 NOTE @N162@
1 HIST @@N382@@
1 ADDR William Francis Rowland GREENWOOD (1846) - Arnolds Yard Queen Street Oxford
1 CHAN
2 DATE 30 MAR 2020
3 TIME 00:00:00
0 @I251@ INDI


0 @I49@ INDI
1 NAME William Francis Rowland /GREENWOOD/
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE 4 JUN 1850
2 PLAC Oxford
1 BAPM
2 DATE 14 JUL 1850
2 PLAC Holy Trinity Church Oxford
1 DEAT
2 DATE 25 MAY 1887
2 PLAC Radcliffe Infirmary Oxford
1 BURI
2 DATE 28 MAY 1887
2 PLAC St Aldates Church Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1850
2 PLAC Gas Street Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1861
2 PLAC 2 Treadwell Gardens St Aldates Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1871
2 PLAC 3 Speedwell Place St Aldates Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1873
2 PLAC 31 Nelson Street Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1880
2 PLAC 11 Nelson Street Jericho Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1880
2 PLAC Pottery Cottages Canal Street Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1882
2 PLAC 2 Seymour Place Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1885
2 PLAC Evans Yard Jericho Street Oxford
1 RESI
2 DATE 1886
2 PLAC 4 Jericho Street Oxford
1 EDUC 1861 - Scholar
1 OCCU 1871,1899 & 1912 - Cab Driver
1 OCCU 1873,1875,1876,1880,1882 & 1886 - Labourer
1 OCCU 1887 - Painter's Lab
1 OCCU 1909 - Coachman (decd)
1 FAMC @F68@
1 FAMS @F62@
1 NOTE @N11@
1 HIST @@N365@@
1 CAUS Nephritis,Suppression of urine - PM (Radcliffe Infirmary Oxford)
1 ADDR William Francis Rowland GREENWOOD (1850) - Gas Street St Ebbes Oxford
1 CHAN
2 DATE 31 JUL 2020
3 TIME 00:00:00
0 @I50@ INDI

[tatewise]

I can see Clean Up Notes has worked from your latest postings.
i.e. In the Property Box, select the Research Notes fact, and the Note text now appears in the Note box on the Facts tab, and when you open the Notes tab and enable Show Fact Notes (Calendar+ button) then the same Note text appears there too.

Those remaining two Note records you just posted look redundant and are not linked to anything so can be deleted.

Those Generations GEDCOM fragments show no evidence of the missing information.
So it looks like Generations does not export it. Therefore FH cannot import it.
For ID 49 Cause of Death (CAUS) is visible but no Minister or Witness or Banns.
Are there any settings in Generations for those missing items that need changing?

[Paul Wigan]

Hello Mike and thanks for that.

I followed the guidance at https://fhug.org.uk/kb/kb-article/impor ... historian/ when dowloading my GEDCOM, and particularly :-

>> Click on GEDCOM File…
>> Make sure that:
>>The Who box is set to All Individuals
>>Include sources is checked
>>Destination is set to Other if that option is available. Otherwise, set Destination to GEDCOM 5.5.
>>GEDCOM Character Set is set to Windows
>>Click the Export… button

As far as the Destination is concerned, my version of Generation offers Ancestral File, Gedcom 4.0 and Gedcom 5.5. Hence, the export window looks like this :-

Capture1 - 22 March 2022.JPG (34.87 KiB) Viewed 2770 times

The Optional fields for Family are all checked. The Optional Fields for Individual are all checked except for the User ID :-

Capture2 - 22 March 2022.JPG (41.76 KiB) Viewed 2770 times

Hence, both the General and Optional Fields are at the default settings.

My Generations came with a printed User Manual of 373 pages ! I have examined the relevant pages and cannot find any settings that require tweaking. The only option seems to be to export the data not as Gedcom, but as a tab or comma delimited text file.

What do you think please ?

Many thanks.

Paul

[tatewise]

What caught my eye was that among the Facts tab entries is Cause of death that exports in the GEDCOM as INDI.CAUS, whereas Minister at baptism and Witness at wedding do not export at all. Why?

Does the Name Cause of death with Tag CAUS appear in the Optional Fields tab list?

Do the Names Minister at baptism and Witness at wedding appear there and if so what is their Tag?

Are all those three items standard Generations Facts, or have any been added by you?

It can do no harm to Export as a tab or comma delimited text file that will open in a spreadsheet like Excel.
However, I suspect it is not the mode of Export that matters, but some other 'setting' that inhibits the missing Facts.
Are there other 'settings' in Generations that define Facts in a similar way that Tools > Fact Types... does in FH?

[Paul Wigan]

Hi Mike and thanks again.

>> Does the Name Cause of death with Tag CAUS appear in the Optional Fields tab list?

Yes :-

Capture4 - 22 March 2022.JPG (41.95 KiB) Viewed 2755 times

>> Do the Names Minister at baptism and Witness at wedding appear there and if so what is their Tag?

No, they don't.

>> Are all those three items standard Generations Facts, or have any been added by you?

That's really hard to say. I have been using Generations for more than twenty years and prior to that I used a very basic program called Expert Roots for Windows. But that did export Gedcom. So anything I have got in Generations might have been created in Expert and then exported, be part of the off-the-shelf Generations or created in it.

>> It can do no harm to Export as a tab or comma delimited text file that will open in a spreadsheet like Excel.
>> However, I suspect it is not the mode of Export that matters, but some other 'setting' that inhibits the missing Facts.
<< Are there other 'settings' in Generations that define Facts in a similar way that Tools > Fact Types... does in FH?

I think that I have made some progress on that. Going into the "Define Person Field" dialogue box in Generations, we have a lengthy series of Facts. These include Minister at baptism and Witness at wedding, but these facts do not have Gedcom tags. I will do you a series of screenshots on this tomorrow evening, but effectively they were not in the Gedcom because they were not tagged.

I get the feeling that once we have tagged all of the Fats that are not tagged, we might be starting afresh ?

Thanks.

Paul

[tatewise]

Yes, that sounds promising.

[Paul Wigan]

Hello Mike,

Yes, very promising.

On ID250, the Edit Person dialogue box has a Flags tab, and a button therein to Define Flags. This opens the Define Person Fields dialogue box. If we click on the Facts tab therein and scroll down to Cause of Death, we can see its Gedcom tag :-

Capture1 - 23 March 2022.JPG (84.98 KiB) Viewed 2720 times

Still on ID250, the Facts tab within the Edit Person dialogue box has an entry for Minister at Baptism : William Henry Chepwell, Curate :-

Capture2 - 23 March 2022.JPG (59.26 KiB) Viewed 2720 times

However, following the same methodology, the Edit Person dialogue box has a Flags tab, and a button therein to Define Flags. This opens the Define Person Fields dialogue box. If we click on the Facts tab therein and scroll down to Minister at baptism, we can see that it does not have a Gedcom tag :-

Capture3 - 23 March 2022.JPG (79.55 KiB) Viewed 2720 times

Continued.....

Thanks.

Paul

[Paul Wigan]

Hi Mike

Continuing...

Moving on to ID49, the Facts tab of the Edit Person dialogue box has entries for Minister at baptism, Witness at wedding and Banns :-

Capture4 - 23 March 2022.JPG (61.58 KiB) Viewed 2722 times

The Facts tag of the Define Persons dialogue box shows that Minister at baptism does not have a Gedcom tag :-

Capture5 - 23 March 2022.JPG (44.93 KiB) Viewed 2722 times

Similarly, Witness at wedding does not have a Gedcom tag :-

Capture6 - 23 March 2022.JPG (44.71 KiB) Viewed 2722 times

Continued.....

Paul

[Paul Wigan]

Hi Mike

Continuing....

And still on ID49, Banns does not have a Gedcom tag.

Capture7 - 23 March 2022.JPG (85.82 KiB) Viewed 2721 times

How do you think that I should move forward ? I have reviewed in detail two men out of a dataset containing about 2,000 persons. And on top of that, this is just one of ten datasets (Generations .uds files) that I eventually need to import into FH.

I am thinking that I need to spend some time, maybe on Saturday, identifying all of the facts in Generations that aren't tagged and adding tags to them.

I would welcome your views on that please, along with a heads-up if you envisage any issues or difficulties.

Many thanks.

Paul

[tatewise]

It does look like those Facts need a GEDCOM Tag definition.
In this context, you are the Expert and I am the Novice

So, define those GEDCOM Tags with some unique but sensible 4-character tags such as MBAP, WWED, BANS, etc.
If you export the GEDCOM, do those tags now appear where they were missing before for ID 49 and ID 250?

If other people use the same Facts, do they have those tags defined?
i.e. Do the definitions affect every person in the dataset, so only need to be defined once per dataset.

Is there any way in Generations to identify which such Facts are used and thus need defined tags?
If not, then you may have to define every Fact GEDCOM Tag to be sure that every Fact gets exported in the GEDCOM.

If you open another dataset do those same Facts have defined GEDCOM Tags?
i.e. Do the definitions affect every person in all datasets globally, so only need to be defined once in any dataset.

In your screenshots, there are tabs for Name, Events, Facts, Notes and Flags.
Are any other items enabled on any of those tabs potentially missing from the exported GEDCOM?
It may be necessary to create a dummy person with all items enable that you may have used as an experiment to see if they all get exported in the GEDCOM file.

The objective is to ensure that all useful data for every person in every dataset gets included in the exported GEDCOM, so we don't have to repeat this exercise again.

[arthurk]

This issue with Gedcom tags in Generations sounds very similar to my experience when moving from Generations to Legacy. I wrote about it earlier in this thread (29 Apr 2021) - this is part of my post:

I can't now remember all the details now, but I've a feeling that with user-defined fact types Generations created a tag consisting of the first 4 letters of the name or label. If these happened to be the same as a standard Gedcom tag, the facts were wrongly assigned when the file was imported to Legacy.

With these facts I was able to edit the tag, and if I gave it a completely fictitious one (eg XZXZ), Legacy then asked me what it should do with it, rather than misassigning it.

Essentially you're creating something in Generation's Gedcom export which will force the importing program to ask what you want to do with it - or possibly in FH, label it as a UDF which can then be dealt with. The fake tags which I used might have been the best way to do this in Legacy, but Mike's suggestion of "unique but sensible" should also work - the main thing is that they mustn't be the same as any other recognised tags.

[tatewise]

If all the Facts had GEDCOM Tag definitions and some were unfortunately standard Tags, then what you say is correct.
However, the problem here is the GEDCOM Tag definitions are missing completely, so the Facts are not even exported.
The Importing to Family Historian guide for Generations will need updating to advise checking the Define Person Fields dialogue, Facts tab, to ensure every GEDCOM Tag is defined.

[arthurk]

Yes, I was trying to keep my answer concise, but the principle is the same: add a tag if there isn't one, and make sure that any tag on these events can't be mistaken for anything else.

[tatewise]

Can you answer any of my earlier questions about the 'scope' of the GEDCOM Tag definitions?
i.e. Does one change affect all people in all datasets, or not?

Is there any way of discovering which Facts are used and which are not?

[Paul Wigan]

Hello Mike

Can you answer any of my earlier questions about the 'scope' of the GEDCOM Tag definitions?
i.e. Does one change affect all people in all datasets, or not?

Is there any way of discovering which Facts are used and which are not?

I haven't had much time to experiment this evening, but if the Generations User Manual (page 76) is accurate, any new Gedcom tags created will apply to everyone within the particular dataset that is amended, but not other datasets. That applies apparently both to Gedcom tags created for Person fields and for Family fields.

If that really is the case, it sounds like bad news. However, I suspect all of my other datasets could probably be updated in a few hours once a method has been established and tested. It looks like on each dataset there are seven sets of Gedcom tags will need updating, four relating to Person fields and three relating to Family fields.

The curious thing about all of this is that I clearly looked at the subject many years ago. Page 76 of the manual has my handwritten annotations in the margin, but I cannot remember when I made the notes !

Of course, I might find that the User Manual is inaccurate, as it relates to Generations version 8.0, whereas I am on version 8.5a.

Best wishes.

Paul

[Paul Wigan]

Hello Mike

I meant to say that I have successfully exported the entire dataset that we are working on as a csv file. That includes the data that we have established doesn't have Gedcom tags.

The drawback is that the worksheet is so wide that I have had to plug a projector into a laptop and project it onto the wall.

Paul

[Paul Wigan]

Hello Mike

Tonight's news is that this is getting quite complicated !

The Define Family Fields dialogue box has three tabs - Marriage, Notes and Events.

Marriage has six events therein ; Notes has one field which is Misc Notes ; and Events has five events therein.

All are showing Gedcom tags thus :-

Capture1 - 25 March 2022.JPG (47.89 KiB) Viewed 2612 times

So that is good.

The Define Person Fields dialogue box has four tabs - Events, Facts and Notes and Flags. These have far more "events" listed in each, some of which show Gedcom tags, whilst some do not :-

Capture2 - 25 March 2022.JPG (40.54 KiB) Viewed 2612 times

I have then gone through and listed all of these "events" that do not have Gedcom tags :-

Capture3 - 25 March 2022.JPG (95.11 KiB) Viewed 2612 times

"Probate" caught my eye as it featured twice, on the Events tab and on the Notes tab. As an experiment, I gave a Gedcom tag PROB to the Probate entry on the Notes tab. My findings were :-

1. within the current dataset (.uds file), the Gedcom tag given to the Probate entry on the Notes tab replicated across all individuals.

2. within the current dataset (.uds file), the Gedcom tag given to the Probate entry on the Notes tab did not replicate across to the Probate entry on the Events tab.

3. within other datasets (.uds files), the Probate entry on the Notes tab remained without a tag.

Hence, the Gedcom tag only applies to the particular tab in a particular dataset.

I have set this out in detail on the basis that it might be useful to others in the future.

Thanks.

Paul

[tatewise]

That is an excellent analysis.
Although each entry on each tab must be defined, there are not too many to update by hand.
Nevertheless, it will have to be repeated for each dataset unless Generations offers some export/import option.

I've noticed a few entries in Define Person Fields that are worth a comment.

Events ~ Divorce
In GEDCOM this would be a Define Family Fields DIV tag (FAM.DIV), not an Individual tag (INDI.DIV).
If you only have a few then they can be resolved manually in FH later.

Events ~ Workhouse and Worlhouse
Notes ~ Chelsea Penshioners and Chelsea Pensioners
Those pairs should be assigned the same GEDCOM Tag so that they merge into one fact in FH.

Events ~ Probate Notes ~ Probate
Events ~ Travel Notes ~ Travel
Those pairs could be assigned the same GEDCOM Tag so that they merge into one fact in FH if that is appropriate.
Probate GEDCOM Tag PROB is a Standard GEDCOM Event.
"An event of judicial determination of the validity of a will. May indicate several related court activities over several dates."

Notes ~ Confirmation
Standard GEDCOM Event Confirmation GEDCOM tag CONF may be appropriate.
"The religious event of conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost and, among protestants, full church membership."

Notes ~ Emigration
Standard GEDCOM Event Emigration GEDCOM tag EMIG may be appropriate.
"An event of leaving one's homeland with the intent of residing elsewhere."

Notes ~ Wills
Standard GEDCOM Event Will GEDCOM tag WILL may be appropriate.
"A legal document treated as an event, by which a person disposes of his or her estate, to take effect after death. The event date is the date the will was signed while the person was alive."

Events ~ New Event
Facts ~ New Fact
Notes ~ New Note
Presumably these can be ignored?

When assigning GEDCOM Tags it would be wise to use 5 or 6 capital letters to avoid any risk of accidentally using one of the 4 letter Standard GEDCOM tags, except where you do want the Generations item to become a Standard GEDCOM Event.

[Paul Wigan]

Events ~ Probate Notes ~ Probate
Events ~ Travel Notes ~ Travel
Those pairs could be assigned the same GEDCOM Tag so that they merge into one fact in FH if that is appropriate.
Probate GEDCOM Tag PROB is a Standard GEDCOM Event.
"An event of judicial determination of the validity of a will. May indicate several related court activities over several dates."

Hi Mike and thanks for those suggestions.

Employment Record features in both Facts and Notes too, so again I will assign both the same tag.

Thanks.

Paul