Family Historian User Group

Gedcom Census is a free application designed to be used with Calico Pie's Family Historian to allow faster and more convenient creation of census source records with occupation attributes, census and birth events linked to the sources. Gedcom Census is in no way associated with or endorsed by Calico Pie.

I first developed Gedcom Census early in 2004 and the various versions since, all available exclusively through the FHUG website, have proved to be very popular with over 4,200 downloads. This latest version does not introduce any major new features and just includes some bug-fixes and a few minor enhancements. Thanks to all those who helped me to test this latest version.

Use Gedcom Census to record census entries that apply to your family. Gedcom Census will create appropriate sources, census events, occupations and births and will even allow images of the census to be linked. All of this information is recorded using the Family Historian GEDCOM format and can be included in Family Historian reports, queries, trees, etc. Gedcom Census has comprehensive help documentation and features to make it easy to use and to accommodate different methods of recording census entries.



Gedcom Census is freeware but many users have opted to make voluntary donations to me. I would like to thank these people very much, some of whom have even donated more than once as they continue to find the application useful!

List of changes for version 4.2.1:

• Fixed a problem that caused a crash if a new place being added was the first alphabetically before all places previously recorded in the file.
• Corrected a problem where Gedcom Census crashed when trying to write to a non-existent or write-protected log file.
• Added support for 1911 Canadian Census.
• It is now possible to save a birth event without recording place of birth.
• There is now an option to only show the name and ID of individuals in the All Individuals and Immediate Family lists rather than showing the name and date of birth if known (this is still the default).
• There is now an option to automatically fill in the start of the census reference number automatically when selecting UK Census records. E.g. the 1891 census will automatically show the reference as 'RG12/'.
• Only approximately the first 65000 characters in a  long log file was shown in previous versions. This is due to a limitation of Windows text boxes. Added a 'next page' button to allow the whole file to be viewed 65000 characters at a time.
• Added option to allow the backup folder to be changed from the default install folder. Included further checks to ensure that the user has permission to create files in the backup folder and also in the location chosen for the log file.
• Changed the names of backup files from the previous Backup 1, Backup 2, etc. to ‘GC Backup’ followed by the date and time that the backup was made.
• The option to delete all but the previous 5 backups didn't necessarily delete the oldest backups! Fixed this.

Version 4.2.1. is now available from this website, thanks as always to Jane for hosting the file for me. You can click on this link to download it. Please contact me if you have any problems.

Nick Walker
Author of Gedcom Census

Thank you again Nick for an excellent program which I have already used hundreds of times.

Julie Hill

E.g. the 1891 census will automatically show the reference as 'RG12/'.

Would it be better to store the Census ref as 'RG12-'. I do this as I also use the file renaming capability, and I assume that the '/' would cause a problem.

Paul

I did some searching around and it does seem as though the standard way to provide the reference is with a /. When image files are renamed the / is automatically replaced with an _ as you quite rightly say the / would cause a problem. Perhaps I can add an option to be able to choose either a / or an - in a future version

I have downloaded the program but when I try to run it I get a small window saying no people selected.
Any ideas what's wrong..........or am I just thick!!

As a relative newcomer to Family Historian I have found Gedcom Census very useful, it would have taken me many hours and many attempts to fathom what information should go where without it. And I can use it again and again, saving even more time!!

Many Thanks!!!
John

Cheers John, I'm glad you have found Gedcom Census useful. I'm currently working on a new version, more news hopefully in the next month or two.

I'm having the same problem as Olympic -I've downloaded the program, but when I try to launch it I get the same message - 'No people in the selected file'. I've un-installed and re-installed, but the problem remains. Am I doing something wrong? Help!

Hi Alan

I contacted Olympic directly about this problem rather than putting the answer here.

When this happens it is usually because you are not opening your family history file when Gedcom Census runs. The way to resolve this is:

1) In Family Historian with your family history file open go the File menu and choose File Statistics.

2) In the window that appears you will see the location of the file (it is most likely in your 'my documents')

3) Now run Gedcom Census and it will ask you to select the file to open. If you click on the My Computer icon you should be able to navigate through to the family history file location specified in step 2 above.

Please let me know how you get on.

Nick

Thanks Nick. Your instructions worked like a dream. Looking forward to trying out your program - looks impressive!

Cheers!
Alan