Family Historian User Group

In Re: Lookup Missing Census Facts a user reports that the Plugin sometimes still lists as missing some Census Events recently inserted by AS.

It appears that AS adds Census Events and Occupation Attributes after all other Facts in the same time frame so they might NOT be in Date order.
This can be confirmed by using the Facts tab List in Record Order button or the All tab.

For reasons of efficiency, the Lookup Missing Census Facts Plugin only searches for a Census Event until it finds a Fact with a later Date, so the out of order Census Events are not detected.

This problem is automatically corrected if any Facts are edited by hand for the same Individual, or by using the Menu > Re-order Facts by Date button, or by using the Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data command.

Nick, is it possible that Facts can be added in Date order in a later update to AS?

Here I am again, causing trouble for you, Nick! But I didn't mean to, honest.

If Ancestral Sources could simply remind the user to re-order the facts in FH after they finish their data entry, wouldn't that be easier than trying to make AS insert its facts in date order?

If my file is a mess, and all my facts are out of order, how is AS supposed to know where to put the new fact? There is no order which AS could place its fact into, unless I have FH clean up my mess first.

Another option would be to have the Census Fact plugin remind the user to make sure the facts were in order before using the Plugin.

That is a valid point about data being a mess, but in that case it would not matter where AS inserted the Facts. So just insert them as soon as any Date greater than the Census Date is reached, or the end of the Record.

A reminder message from both AS and the Plugin is also a good idea.
Although, separate popup messages are an annoyance because of the extra click OK, whereas messages that occur every time in the same place tend to become invisible.

I'll investigate this for a future update. I should point out that this is the way that AS(and before that Gedcom Census, have done it for the last 10 years. I expect this hasn't been reported as a problem before (as far as I can remember) because Family Historian automatically shows the events in date order in the properties box and in narrative reports (but interestingly not in summary or record details reports)

NickWalker wrote:I'll investigate this for a future update. I should point out that this is the way that AS(and before that Gedcom Census, have done it for the last 10 years. I expect this hasn't been reported as a problem before (as far as I can remember) because Family Historian automatically shows the events in date order in the properties box and in narrative reports (but interestingly not in summary or record details reports)

In the Records Window, they are not re-ordered until you ask FH to re-order them again. As far as I remember, the Facts tab of the Property Box is the same way.

It has only become a significant problem because of the way the Lookup Missing Census Facts Plugin (for efficiency) stops looking for Census Events once it finds any Fact with a Date after the Census Date.
i.e. The Plugin assumes all Facts are in Date order, but in the case of AS appended Census Events they are not.

There are several factors that affect the display of Facts in Date or Record order:

• Tools > Preferences > General tab has Enable automatic ordering of events/attributes by date.
• Property Box on its Facts tab has the List in Record Order button to alter the displayed order.
• Property Box on its All tab, and the Records Window always display Record order.

I am not sure which of the above may also affect the order in Reports, but I would expect the Details Report to be in Record order.

The Property Box on its Facts tab has Menu > Re-order Facts by Date and there is Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data that correct the order.

Mike, I simply commented out line 3355 so it did the rest of the facts. On my data it did not make a noticeable difference to the run speed, I realise on very large trees and doing all individuals it might, but it might be worth adding it as an option.

That is a possibility, perhaps automatically depending on the number of Individuals.

However, probably better and just as quick to encourage the use of Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data because there are other side-effects of out of sequence data.
e.g.
All Reports except Narrative and Outline, which thus may affect FH created web pages.
Property Box custom Census tab using instance number instead of year index.

For the next version the plugin will search all Facts unless more than 1000 Individuals are being searched.