* Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

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NigelSomerset
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Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by NigelSomerset »

Mike
Sorry for another question, on a different topic.

I see the Plugin for Missing BMD Records FAQ has a list of the factors which determine if a BMD record is missing.

Is a similar list available please for the missing Census Facts Plugin?

Do you have any quick hints or pointers to help me resolve below problem?

Although my imported GEDCOM from Ancestry has around 750 individuals with source citations referring back to Ancestry generated "Residence" ( ie Place) Facts at 10 yearly intervals with an accompanying citation such as eg "1901 England Census", I have from the Ancestry/FTM files no specific Facts categorised as "Census" Facts. I guess that is the reason running the plug in gives me a very large list, most of which I do have census data for?

Would a search and replace eg 1901 with the specific census date for 1901 help me with more focused results? I tried a manual change on a couple of individuals and reran the plug in and it did not change the results?

If I did a find and replace on "Residence" to change to "Census" would that will mess up all the geocoding of Places aka Residences that I have just finished ensuring are consistently entered

Thanks again for your time

Nigel
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tatewise
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Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by tatewise »

The factors are much simpler for missing Census records.
In the Help & Advice in the User Options page it says:
"The Lookup Missing Census Facts button searches the chosen Individuals for missing Census Events during their lifetime..." The F.A.Q. covers some optional exclusions.

You need to resolve those Residence facts into equivalent Census Events.
That is straightforward if the Residence fact Date is the exact Census date for each decade.

Use the Change Any Fact Tag Plugin to change Source Tag Name: Residence to Target Tag Name: Census but with the Date: filter set to the 1841 Census date 6 Jun 1841. Then repeat for 1851 date 30 March 1851 and so on for each decade. All associated details such as Place field & mapping, Source Citations, etc, will be preserved.

The idea is to selectively convert just the Residence facts that match Census events, without converting any other Residence facts. If you have no other Residence facts, then you can dispense with the Date filter, and convert them all in one go.

If the Date fields do not match the Census dates, they will need correcting, otherwise will still be considered 'missing'.
Does this problem apply, and if so what Dates are used?
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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NigelSomerset
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Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by NigelSomerset »

Mike

Thanks, for the very helpful guidance.

My dates for residence at the moment are all just plain year date of eg 1861 or 1871 etc. Do I need to find a way to convert them into eg 31 March 1861 ( or whatever I can see from Ancestry Sources is the correct day and month?

Nigel
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tatewise
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Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by tatewise »

The Plugin should tolerate just the year matching the Census date, but it would be better if the whole date was correct.

The best approach depends on various details.
Are there other Residence facts apart from the ones that represent Census events?
If there are, then what Date formats might they use?
i.e. Is it only the ones that represent Census events that use a year with no month or day?
Do the Residence facts that represent Census events have a particular Place name format?

The Search and Replace Plugin can selectively search just Residence facts or just Census facts.
For those, it can search for a specific Date and replace it with another Date.
But the details of exactly what to search for depends on the answers above.
Otherwise, you may have to confirm each Date change one by one.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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NigelSomerset
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Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by NigelSomerset »

Mike

Thanks; In reply to your queries:

The associated Residence/Place data is cleaned and formatted now to be Town, County, Country; eg Ludlow, Shropshire, England. All the fuller "Address elements" or ecclesiastical Parish is dropped down into the FH Address Field,.... eg 1 High Street, Ludlow, Shropshire, England or St Giles, Ludlow, Shropshire, England. Those for Australia, Canada and USA similarly

My Residence data associated with the specific years of the UK censuses between 1841 and 1911 almost exclusively relate to Census data and are formatted as YYYY.

My 1939 register data has been associated with a Residence and the full DD/MM/YY 1939 date.

I do have other Residence data entered not from the Censuses. Where this falls in the period 1841 to 1911 this is usually recorded as the YYYY or DD/MM/YY of marriages, or in some cases the detail from old birth certificates. But only a much less than 1 in 10 chance that a YYYY Residence record falls in a census year.... because I haven't too much extra information on Residence other than census, and where I do it will be in MM/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY format.

Maybe best to be safe if I manually identify and list any clashes with the specific census years of these mainly Residence at time of Marriage or Birth events and temporarily change the date to a non census year. There are probably only around 30 or so cases of this, in a focused area of my Project out of the much greater number of Census records concerned in the 1841 to 1911period

If I do this first, and then follow your suggested approach on a copy of my Project, does that sound a sensible approach to you based on your experience?

Nigel
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tatewise
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Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by tatewise »

Yes, that sounds like a workable approach.
  1. Manually ensure that all Residence facts dated in Census years use a Date format other than an unqualified year.
    You could simply make such dates approximate or calculated so they are different.
    Use File > Backup/Restore > Small Backup to save the GEDCOM database just in case!
  2. Use the Search and Replace Plugin to adjust the Dates with the following settings.
    See its Help & Advice for full details.
    In Basic Filters ensure only the Date fields option at bottom is ticked.
    Set the Search Scope above to Residence (INDI.RESI).
    Select LUA Pattern Mode top right.
    In Search box enter ^1841$ where ^ and $ are start & end of text anchors.
    In Replace box enter 6 June 1841 with month in full.
    Click Search & Replace and review the replacements.
    If OK then untick Confirm every item found and Replace the rest.
    Review the Result Set of changes, and if any problems use Edit > Undo Plugin Updates.
    Run the Search and Replace Plugin again with all the settings as you left them.
    Change the Search year and Replace date, then repeat the above process for each Census decade.
  3. Use the Change Any Fact Tag to convert Residence to Census with the Date filter for each Census in turn.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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NigelSomerset
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Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by NigelSomerset »

Mike

Thanks ever so much for your detailed advice. Will give it a go over the weekend so I can concentrate on it

Nigel
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NigelSomerset
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Posts: 24
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Family Historian: V6.2

Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts: Determining Factors

Post by NigelSomerset »

Mike

Thanks again for the guidance. All worked OK to safely change 4237 residence events in census years to Census events and the Census Plug in now gives me a much more manageable list of just 120 Missing Census returns to locate

Thanks

Nigel
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