Family Historian User Group

Hi Mike

I have added the majority of my census entries using Ancestral Sources. Whilst the place and address of the particular census entry show in the Census tab the occupation does not. Is this due to something I'm doing wrong in AS or is there something I need to tweak in the Census Tab?

Regards
Brain

Brian, I have started a new thread as this is a different issue.

The key question is are you filling in the Occupation column on the AS Census Grid?
It is that which causes AS to auto-create Occupation facts.

I suspect not, because there are no Occupation facts on Facts tab, and you are adding a Note to the Census Event instead.

Hi Mike
I've just entered a new census entry using AS.

The census grid is as below: Unless I'm missing something the relevant occupations are entered in the occupation column, but still are not being picked up in the Census tab for any of the individuals e.g Cornelius:
So still puzzled I'm afraid

Regards
Brian

Hi Brian

I'm wondering if you've updated the census templates in AS so that occupation isn't saved as a fact but is instead added to the census fact as a note. This isn't something I'd ever recommend but would explain why the occupations aren't showing up. Do you remember doing that? If you look at the 1861 census template (Census menu->Census Templates...) and select the occupation column is the 'column type' generic?

Thanks

Nick

Just to be absolutely clear, use the AS command Census > Census Templates and choose Country: UK and each year in turn should display something similar to screenshot below, where the Rank, Profession, or Occupation column should have Column Type: Occupation to create Occupation facts. If it says Column Type: Generic then the Recording option below defines how the occupation is handled, but you must have changed that in every Census Template from 1841 to 1939.

Hi Mike/Nick
I've never been into the templates screen of AS so should be as installed.
Opening up Census, I'm seeing exactly the same as described. Brian

The only other possible "interference" with Census Occupation fact that I can think of is my own setting of the Census Definition
I have no idea as to whether this may be the cause of the empty Occupation field in the Census Tab

The following data set for this individual may help
That's as much as I can think of by way of additional information if it is of any use.

Brian

All those settings look OK, but let me experiment with that Census definition, although I don't think AS uses that.

Hi Brian

So when the entry was created for Cornelius, presumably you went into Family Historian and edited the note in the census record to say 'occupation shown as labourer'. I would have expected to see an individual Fact for occupation in your list too - are you deleting that as part of the process?

When you added the census entry for Cornelius in AS, I would have expected to see a Census fact and an Occupation fact listed for him in Family Historian (similar to my screenshot below) and I can't understand why the occupation isn't there in FH unless you're removing it?
Nick

I have experimented with a Census Event definition with an Auto-Create Note and an Individual record similar to your earlier screen-shot including UDF of _UID and _UPD. Both the Census and Occupation facts were auto-created by AS as expected (without the Auto-Create Note).

So if you are not deleting the Occupation facts as suggested by Nick, then perhaps the AS program has somehow incurred a snag, and its latest version should be re-installed to see if that fixes the problem.

Hi Nick/Mike

No, I haven't done any editing/deleting of any note or fact after simply entering the census details via AS.

Tried your suggestion Mike, and re-installed the latest version - same result I'm afraid.

Brian

It might help if we could see the Log Files created by AS.

In AS, use Tools>View Log Files and select one of the recent census entries. (If necessary click through <Entry 1 of ...> to reach one of the cases you have illustrated.) You may need to enlarge the Log File window to show the full list of facts AS created for a given census. Then post a screen shot here.

This will show exactly what AS did or did not do.

Well, I am at a loss to explain what is going wrong, but Lorna's suggestion is a good idea.

Brian, can you repeat the process with the Family Historian Sample Project and/or a small new Project of your own.
That will show whether the fault is generic, or particular to your main Project Gedcom file.

BTW:
The AS Log should look as below where Individual Record Id 6 has a Census and Occupation <NewEntry> fact added.
Note that the latest entries are <DateTime> stamped near the top of the log :-
<SubEntry>
<EntryType>asIndividual</EntryType>
<ID>6</ID>
<NewEntry>False</NewEntry>
<Information>Ian Stephen MUNRO [6]</Information>
<SubEntry>
<EntryType>asFact</EntryType>
<ID>-1</ID>
<NewEntry>True</NewEntry>
<Information>Census</Information>
</SubEntry>
<SubEntry>
<EntryType>asFact</EntryType>
<ID>-1</ID>
<NewEntry>True</NewEntry>
<Information>Occupation</Information>
</SubEntry>
</SubEntry>

Brian

I found a rootsweb FHU email thread from January 2015 where you asked if there was a way that you could append the occupation to the census fact in Ancestral Sources rather than use Occupation and Mike Tate (Tatewise) explained: "Essentially you must change the Occupation column item for each one, from Occupation type to Generic type. Occupation type creates an Occupation fact, whereas Generic type can create a Census local Note. See some of the other Generic type column items for an example ~ UK 1911 has most. To create a Template based on say UK 1911, then first open the UK 1911 template and click Copy. Then enter a new similar name say U.K. 1911 and click New and then Paste and Save. Now you can change the new Template without upsetting the defaults, although Reset... will get ALL Installation Settings back.".

You replied: After a few false starts and a few swear words (!!##!!) I think I've got it. Tried it out with the FH sample project so no dramas - phew!By replacing Personal Occupation in the column title with "occupation recorded as" and modifying my Census Fact template code I can make a half decent sentence in the narrative without needing to go into each census entry and deleting superfluous words from the note field.

So it certainly looks like you have edited your templates in the past to do this and this would explain why you don't have any occupation facts and also why the census tab isn't showing occupation facts (because there aren't any!). I suspect all of your census entries are being entered under the U.K. (with full stops) templates that you created when you followed Mike's instructions back in 2015 and this explains why the 1861 UK (without the full stops) template looked correct in the screenshot you posted earlier. Mystery Solved!

Best wishes

Nick

Hi Nick
So even though I've uninstalled and reinstalled AS my customisations are retained elsewhere?
If I hit Restore Defaults in AS will that remove any customistations?

Brian

Hi Brian

Yes the templates are in the Ancestral Sources folder in your Documents folder in a file called settings.xml.

When you're adding census entries and you choose the country I'm guessing that you have UK and U.K. in that list. If you choose UK rather than U.K. then it will probably work using the default census templates. Otherwise you could indeed restore defaults.

But do remember that this would mean that your new census records would have separate occupations facts and therefore work differently to your existing census facts. You may feel that having entered a lot of census entries using your method that it would be best to stick with that. Although not my area of expertise, I would imagine it may be possible to edit the Census tab to work with your occupations that are stored in notes (Mike and others will be able to advise).

Nick

The Census tab Occupation boxes could be redefined to show the Census local Note but would display the full text such as occupation shown as: Labourer or whatever is in the Note.

Brian, if this scenario stems from January 2015, why has it taken so long to surface?
See RootsWeb FHU Email Narrative reports and census entries.

The way forward depends on the number of Census events with Occupation in the local Note and whether you want to continue with that style or embrace the new FH V6 Narrative Sentence features that would allow Census and Occupation facts to be combined in one sentence. It might even be possible to support both styles simultaneously until you have had time to convert the backlog to a single style.

Mike,
I notice you gave an example above of what the AS log would look like. That is of course when it is opened direct.
It doesn't matter now, but it is worth noting that if viewed via AS using Tools>View Log Files it is presented in a more readable form.
For example:

Lorna, Mike and Nick

Thanks for all your interest.

Firstly a log file from AS To answer Mike's question - why did it take so long?
I was more focused on producing narrative reports that had an easier readability rather than just a list of fairly dry facts, hence my changing the Census Fact template code. I had completely forgotten that I had ventured into AS and made amendments as suggested by yourself. My apologies for that error. It was only when I noticed in a recent posting regarding "Occupation from death certificate showing in Census field" that showed the benefits of using the Census tab in the property box. For my purposes now, this is a much clearer way of showing the movements and occupations of an individual than my more cumbersome but more narrative friendly method using the note field. Hence my surprise that when adding the census fact tab no occupations were displayed and my sudden interest in this issue.

My next step is to take up your suggestion and create a small project and try these settings out and see where that gets me.

Many thanks to all for your patience and assistance.

I will report back with the results and hopefully a happy conclusion!

Brian

I created a small project and tried again. The results were the same.

However after looking hard at what Mike had suggested I do to AS to include a narrative sentence which I had completely forgotten about (my sincere apologies there for needlessly wasting people's time) and reversing it with Nick's guidance I'm now happy to report that new census entries are filling the occupation fields in the Census Tab.
I now need to work on the existing census entries!

Grateful thanks to Lorna, Mike and Nick for all your patience and assistance.

Brian

By way of rounding off this exercise here is my solution for my own self inflicted problem.

I can now see occupations which have been associated with a person using both my old "narrative" method and the approved method
Maybe not ideal, but until I get round to putting all my census data back in via the normal process and thereby showing occupation as a fact, it'll do for the moment

Regards to all
Brian

It might be possible to write a "one off" plugin to do this, but it will depend on how many you have as it will take a while to write one.

There's over 180 people with an average of 3 census notes each showing "occupation shown as : ******" so it might not be worth your while Jane.

It's not like I've been collecting all the "hangers on" which can add significantly to the total individuals in a project.

If you can, that would be brilliant, but don't feel you have to.

Many thanks whichever.
Brian

Please give this one a go. Please backup first and check your data carefully. Remember you can use Edit>Undo if you have problems, it's also worth turning off Autosave when trying new plugins.

[/s]

Hi Jane
Sadly no, that didn't work quite as planned. I've run it on my "test family" with the following results
1851 was the "approved" AS method with 1861 & 1871 my "narrative!" method

However on running the plugin ( 4 times because I hadn't realised it had run! ) I got the following:
So, to my untrained eye it would seem it has created an Occupation fact as a Census fact perhaps?

I took your advice and backed up beforehand

Brian