* How to not mark the deceased without dates as living

[capnkeith]

Using FH gedcom export & plugin Export gedcom file, I have put a tree onto TNG and use their settings for hiding the information of the living. My problem is it also hides the information of anyone else who doesn't have a birth or death date but who has long since departed.
Other than using fictitious dates, I dont see a way to avoid this in TNG? Or looking at the options within FH is there a way to avoid it. If I mark individuals as living or private in FH will they display as a living or private in a TNG Family Sheet or Tree? Or do they not get exported to TNG.
Or is there another way?

Regards

[tatewise]

I suspect TNG users will provide a solution.
When you understand the TNG options, then maybe FH can be set up to work with them.

But from the FH perspective, as explained in plugins:help:export_gedcom_file:tng_the_next_generation|> Export Gedcom File ~ (TNG) The Next Generation, any one Flag per Individual record is imported by TNG.

However, a Living Flag or Private Flag are the opposite of what you need.
What you need is a Deceased Flag or Public Flag that perhaps can counteract the TNG behaviour?
Does TNG itself have any such Flags that would act as you desire?

Alternatively, add a Birth Event with a Range Date such as Between 1800 and 1840 because you must have some idea when they were born after their parents coming of age and before they departed. Then the date is not totally fictitious, and a note can explain how you derived the range.

[Gowermick]

Got it in one Mike. There are lots of occasions I have found when having no date causes me problems, e.g. sorting on birth dates. It is particularly galling when someone living around 1500, is still classed as living!

Similar to your suggestion, I get round this by using ‘about’ as in c1700. If necessary I use marriage date or birth of eldest child as a rough guide and deduct 20. I know it is innaccurate, hence the c before it, but it gives a realistic ballpark figure.

[capnkeith]

If i can use a living or private flag from FH and it works in TNG, without using their settings, then I don't need to use the living option in TNG. Problem solved. Can I set either flag in FH without it affecting those without birth and death dates. How does the FH Privacy flag get set is it just manual.

Dates in the 17/1800s can usually be reasonably guessed with a circa date. The dates I am referring to our 14/1500s and if you have already used circa dates it is not so good with 2 or 3 more generations. I do sometimes have a "living in" date or a marriage date. Which helps but doesn't get picked up by the flags. But people viewing them wont see that if the living or privacy flags have been there.

Regards

[tatewise]

Did you check plugins:help:export_gedcom_file:tng_the_next_generation|> Export Gedcom File ~ (TNG) The Next Generation?
There it says in the Import Details:

Create a custom _FLGS tag to accept Living & Private flags, etc, but only one imports per Individual.

Bear in mind that TNG does not have Flags like FH, and that _FLGS tag is like a Custom Fact.

So the question is, can TNG be customised to hide details of Individuals with the _FLGS tag set to Living?

If you can satisfy yourself that works then the problem is solved, but not before.

Also you have to locate all the living people in your Project to set the Living Flag and manage them for ever manually.

Yes, the Private Flag is exactly similar to the Living Flag, just with a different name.

[capnkeith]

I've found a better way. I thought about putting a 1 in the date for death in TNG. It worked but not really what I wanted. So I tried a Y that worked even better by changing to "Yes, date unknown"

Now all I have to do is a find an easy way to locate all those without birth / death dates and put a Y in the death date box.

Regards

[PeterR]

You can get "1 DEAT Y" into the GEDCOM by adding Death using the All tab of the Property Box.

[capnkeith]

You will have to give me a lot more than that to go on Peter. Then when I understand it, are you telling me that it will put a Y in the death date field in TNG?

[PeterR]

I don't know the details of how TNG imports a GEDCOM file, but it must be able to handle the valid GEDCOM "1 DEAT Y" which is what you will get in FH's GEDCOM if you do as I suggested above. You certainly cannot input "Y" into a death date in FH.

[tatewise]

Simply add a Death Event to everyone who needs one on the Facts tab in the usual way.
Do NOT enter anything in the Date or Place or anything else.
Save and Close FH.
Open FH and then at the GEDCOM level every Death will have a Y.
It is a standard GEDCOM mechanism to prevent otherwise empty facts from being deleted.
FH never shows that Y, but it seems that TNG does.
So having completed the above, when you Export Gedcom File and import to TNG those Death Y should be there.

[capnkeith]

From Peter's post I made a small gedcom and in Notepad pasted in "I DEAT Y" into several peoples record, imported into TNG and it worked. Then I spotted Tatewise post on my way back to FH. So having a look at the gedcom file in FH the ones that I put "I DEAT Y" into now have a "Y" (just as typed with inverted commas) in the date field of the Property Box under Main Tab and Facts tab. If I type "Y" into an empty date field it is not rejected. So I am assuming if i carry on just inserting "Y" it will work as required.

Regards

[PeterR]

I never suggested using Notepad to create "1 DEAT Y".

Entering a date phrase such as "Y" (with the quotes) will result in the following in the GEDCOM

1 DEAT
2 DATE (Y)

and I don't know what TNG would make of that.

As suggested earlier you can create the desired "1 DEAT Y" in the GEDCOM by creating a Death Event in FH using the Facts tab or the All tab of the Property Box. No need for Notepad.

[tatewise]

I have no idea what you did Keith, but inserting 1 DEAT Y into an FH GEDCOM definitely DOES NOT result in a "Y" in the Date field. What Peter says is absolutely correct.

I do wish, when given specific advice, that users did not go off piste, as they run the risk of damaging things.

Yes, do as we say, and see how TNG handles it. If that still does not work, then we will think again.

You may be correct that a Date Phrase of "Y" in the Death Date filed is what TNG requires.

I am surprised no TNG users have advised the best course of action.

[capnkeith]

As I said, I did not understand Peter's posts I had no idea how to get a Y into the gedcom. I knew it was possible to edit a gedcom in Notebook so, as I mentioned, I tried with a small gedcom that didn't matter if it was screwed up.

So yes, probably, obviously, anything you do to create a Death Fact will make it visible. The best solution of putting a Y in the death date field of TNG, which creates a message of "Yes, date unknown" in displays. However it is unfortunately the least practicable because you will have to redo it every time you upload an updated Gedcom. It's a shame FH cannot create the same message instead of just Died:

No Gedcoms were harmed during these experiments.

Regards

[tatewise]

Why do you say: "you will have to redo it every time you upload an updated Gedcom" ?

If our assumptions are correct, then only new Individual records will need to ensure they have an empty Death Event.
All the existing Individual records will retain their empty Death Events indefinitely.
But we have yet to confirm exactly what is needed in GEDCOM to get TNG to say "Yes, date unknown".

All genealogy products are different. If they were the same there would be no contest.
But FH can often be customised to mimic other products.
So, if you wish I can explain how to get FH to say something like "He died date unknown" like TNG.

[capnkeith]

Why do you say: "you will have to redo it every time you upload an updated Gedcom" ?

Because an updated gedcom from FH will replace the gedcom in TNG, any editing done in TNG will be lost. I am not aware of any way to upload part gedcoms.

If a fact in TNG has all empty fields nothing is displayed including it's title / Subject. So anything you do in FH such as just creating a fact with no data will not display In TNG.

Unfortunately in FH it does display a title with no data. Rather than getting FH to display some text, would it be possible to make it not display a title unless a data field had been filled?

Regards

[PeterR]

You said the following yesterday evening:

… I made a small gedcom and in Notepad pasted in "I DEAT Y" into several peoples record, imported into TNG and it worked.

I understood from that that a GEDCOM with "1 DEAT Y" would be imported by TNG which would then show "Yes, date unknown". What else did you mean by "it worked"?

If it did work (as I understood it) then "1 DEAT Y" in the GEDCOM is easily maintained in FH, as explained above.

[tatewise]

Yes, as has been said several times now, an empty Death Event in FH produces 1 DEAT Y in the GEDCOM, that you say works in TNG to display "Yes, date unknown" as required and problem is solved.
It is a special case required by GEDCOM that when no Date or Place that DEAT must be followed by Y to prevent it being purged as a useless fact with no details.

I will investigate if it is possible to customise FH to display nothing if the Death Event has no subsidiary data.

When you say TNG displays nothing, do you mean everywhere, or just in narrative reports?
Surely if a Death Event exists (i.e. DEAT in GEDCOM) then TNG must display something.
Otherwise, how were you able to add Y to it in your earlier experiments?

[capnkeith]

Edit: This was written before Tatewises' previous post

If you type a Y into a TNG field it then displays as Yes, date unknown.

If you put 1 DEAT Y into a gedcom and then upload to TNG it does not hide the person from Living, hence "It worked" but it did not display Yes, date unknown.

When I put that gedcom into FH it displayed "Y" in the field where the date would normally be.

So I then put "Y" into a FH field which in FH diagram it displayed, Died: "Y". if you put it into TNG you get (Y) as you said.

All I am trying to achieve is people without a birth or death record getting caught up by the Hide Living setting. I haven't tried it but surely the same thing must happen in FH. It now makes it more understandable and less critical of Ancestry trees with people marked as living or private when their children born in 1800s are not.

[PeterR]

So your primary objective, which was to prevent individuals from being treated as "Living", is achieved by exporting a GEDCOM from FH which contains "1 DEAT Y", i.e. a Death Event with no other data, easily achieved and maintained in FH.

What we don't know is what in a GEDCOM can be imported to TNG to result in "Yes, date unknown" in such cases.

[capnkeith]

When you say TNG displays nothing, do you mean everywhere, or just in narrative reports?
Surely if a Death Event exists (i.e. DEAT in GEDCOM) then TNG must display something.
Otherwise, how were you able to add Y to it in your earlier experiments?

On the Individuals information sheet if there is no data then there is no heading nothing. on the diagrams there is only data no headings. If you hover a small window opens with more info but only for what there is data for, they use B: M: D: but only if the data is available. on a Group Sheet it appears there are 4 standard rows of born, christening, Died and Buried, there whether filled or not. Then other rows are added if there is data available. The four standard rows might be influenced by LDS as they include their terms in those rows as well

The input fields are only visible to those with edit permissions who have opened the edit facility which is basically another page with all fields available. Reports are more or less tables with column headings and data where input displayed which includes Yes, no date. . . , otherwise fields are blank. Nothing like the reports available in FH Similar to what I recall from Access databases a collation of fields.

Regards

[capnkeith]

Peter
The only issue left with that is in FH diagrams you get Dead: .. everywhere you use it. Probably in reports as well?

[Jane]

Keith:I am obviously missing something in this long thread. You can set the living flag in FH to highlight the living.

You can export a list of record IDs which are living easily enough using a Query and use that list of numbers to set all the living flags in the TNG database using SQL once you have done the import.

Code: Select all

UPDATE `tng_people` set `living` = '1' WHERE `gedcom` = 'Mullins' and personID in ('I1','I2')

Where 'Mullins" would be the name of your Gedcom and the numbers in brackets the list of living IDs from FH

If you wanted you could generate a quick plugin to create the SQL statement for you very easily , or even use a plugin to write out a Php script to set the living flag.

If you 'require' config.php you could easily open the database and issue the SQL command.

[capnkeith]

Hi Jane,

My issue is not the living, it is those that are dead and have been for some considerable while, but are identified as living because they have no birth or death record. Are you telling me that you can separate them from the genuine living?

Regards

[PeterR]

If TNG needs a Death Event (even with no other data) rather than the absence of a "Living" Flag, to avoid exclusion as if living then, as discussed above, such Death Events can be added in FH. If the relevant Individuals can be identified (e.g. born before 19nn) than the process could be automated using a Plugin.