Family Historian User Group

First off, this isn't (yet) a request for some kind soul to write me another plugin; it's asking for feedback on an idea. (Or, alternatively, for information on how to do this efficiently using existing features.)

I've recently had cause to browse though all of the individuals in my current database, and I was struck by the number of (possible) data-entry errors that I encountered. Broadly speaking, these fall into the following categories:

• two birth events for the same individual;
• two christening events for the same individual;
• birth and christening being tens of years apart (due to date mis-entry);
• two marriage events for the same couple;
• marriage at an impossibly early age;
• two census events for the same individual in the same year.

So my questions are: would a plugin to warn of these situations be useful? and, what other possible errors could also be highlighted?

There are a couple of other programmes that you could consider.

There is Bonkers which is part of Gigatrees available from http://gigatrees.appspot.com/

There is FT Analyzer which is available from http://ftanalyzer.com/

Both of these produce the sort of reports you want and work with Gedcoms.

Just an aside to Valkrider's advice, and not to detract from it, but the author of Gigatrees is terminating further development efforts and support of the application.

Roger,

- two birth events for the same individual;
- two christening events for the same individual;
- two marriage events for the same couple;

These can easily be one with queries in FH, check to see if there is more than one event for the person.

For example: Exclude if %INDI.FAMS>MARR[2]% is null

- marriage at an impossibly early age;

This one can easily be done with a query, check to see if the marriage age is less than some age that you decide is too young.

For example: Add if %FAM.MARR[1].HUSB.AGE% is younger than 13

It does not cover everything you asked for, but for date checking there is the standard Fact Date Warnings Query.

The Show Project Statistics Plugin is worth running, and should find some of your problems, and maybe others.

See also Query for multiple fact types (15126) that offers some Plugins.

Thanks for all those suggestions; I'll see how far I get with them.

I'd like to second FTAnalyzer. It does have its issues (e.g. 1939 census dates) but does an awful lot of checking in one pass of a file. I use it quite regularly after long sessions to make sure I've not made any less obvious errors.

From time to time, I like to use Louis Kessler's Behold to produce an Everything Report so I can see my database in human-readable form. Errors I've made in data entry tend to pop out that way.

I also have FTAnalyzer.

For missing data, I use Mike's plugins for Family Historian, plus Underwood Innovations's utility GenSmarts.