Estimating death

MartinPage · Post by **MartinPage** » 17 May 2009 11:44

At the moment I have a manually produced family tree on the Genes Reunited website. If I were to load up my FH-generated gedcom file, I would attract a lot more links with other users. The problem is to preserve the privacy of all those people still alive. Obviously some people's alive/dead status can be determined as to whether there is a death date or not. Those without a death date could be determined manually but would be very time consuming. In fact it would be really useful (I can't find if there is a facility already) for one to show someone as dead if a death date was unknown. Obviously someone born in, say, 1848 is no longer with us!

This has probably been asked before but is there a quick way to determine individuals' alive/dead statuses - I'm guessing using flags and queries?

Regards, Martin.

ID:3750

karenndean · Post by **karenndean** » 17 May 2009 13:52

I also believe that Genes automatically assumes someone over 120 (i think) is deceased if using the hide living relatives option.

ChrisBowyer · Post by **ChrisBowyer** » 17 May 2009 16:32

I think you're right Karen. In any case, you don't need to do anything to your tree, just let Genes do it for you (but from memory, the 'hide living relatives' option has to be explicitly selected rather than the default it clearly should be).

MartinPage · Post by **MartinPage** » 17 May 2009 17:42

Thanks. I'll try uploading a gedcom file and have a look at the results.

I don't know if this is on an FH wish list but I remember the first family tree program that I bought in 1998. It wasn't terribly good by today's standards but it did have the very useful facility of being able to input 'Dead' against anyone whom you knew had passed on even if you didn't know the date.

Martin.

KarenMG · Post by **KarenMG** » 17 May 2009 17:52

My old program was a little like that too, you could set a default age that after this point would just assume that the person was deceased.

Dont forget when uploading to Genes that you will be looking at the tree with your log on and so will see everyone. You really need to access it through someone elses eyes to see what everyone else sees.

Post by **nsw** » 17 May 2009 18:33

Martin Page said:
I don't know if this is on an FH wish list but I remember the first family tree program that I bought in 1998. It wasn't terribly good by today's standards but it did have the very useful facility of being able to input 'Dead' against anyone whom you knew had passed on even if you didn't know the date.
Martin.

You can create a death 'fact' in FH and not put any date, place, etc. in it so all it shows is the person is dead.

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 17 May 2009 21:49

This is from memory, so if I'm wrong please feel free to contradict me.

One thing to note about GR is that even if you use the 'hide living relatives' option living people will still be used in it's hot matching process. So you will get other members contacting you about living people, though when you share your tree that will not be able to see the details of living person in question.

MartinPage · Post by **MartinPage** » 18 May 2009 09:01

Nick, I added a 'Died' fact for one of my records where no death date was known and, yes, it did show on the Facts page. Although this may help with the Genes Reunited problem, the fact that he had died didn't show in the tree diagram. Is there any way the 'Died' aspect can be shown on a diagram?

Regards, Martin.

MartinPage · Post by **MartinPage** » 18 May 2009 09:19

I bit the bullet and uploaded my gedcom file. The problem is it's showing everyone - living and dead. I've looked at some of my 'shared' trees and some show full details also and some show hidden relatives. I had a quick look as to how to suppress living relatives but couldn't find it on the GR site. Obviously it's there somewhere. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to how to do this?

Also, another thing: I assume that once you've added a few more names to your tree in FH, you then upload the latest version of your gedcom file to overwrite old version...

Regards, Martin.

hilarygn · Post by **hilarygn** » 18 May 2009 09:31

On Genes click on my account. You may have to enter your password. Under personal details last line says 'Hide living relations' Change this to yes.
Hilary

MartinPage · Post by **MartinPage** » 18 May 2009 09:38

Thanks Hilary. It appears that that box had been ticked already. Could it be that although I can see details of my living relatives, other GR members can't?

Regards, Martin.

hilarygn · Post by **hilarygn** » 18 May 2009 09:41

I can see my living relatives but don't think others can. I you want to be sure why not ask one of your contacts if this is the case.
Hilary

ADC65 · Post by **ADC65** » 18 May 2009 12:52

You can always see all your relatives on Genes Reunited, but as long as you have ticked the 'Hide Living Relatives' box your contacts will just see 'Living Relative' and no details for anyone without a date of death and born in the last 120 years.

The reason you can see them is so you can edit the details if required - for example, by adding in a deate of death. Some people maintain their trees on GR rather than use a genealogy software package.

davidm_uk · Post by **davidm_uk** » 19 May 2009 18:13

Have a look in the Downloads, Queries section on this forum. There is a query which helps to determine living relatives and you can then use the result to set the living flag.

Alternativley, use Res Privata (I think it's on the download area here, if not message me and I can let you have a copy). You use it to filter a copy of your GED file before uploading it to the likes of GR and Ancestry, and amongst other things you can remove details (like day and month of birth/marriage/death, but leave the year, remove note fields, multimedia fields etc) before uploading. Worth a look.

David

Post by **hsw** » 19 May 2009 18:29

Seconding the suggestion of Res Privata -- it's the most flexible and robust solution I've found.

davidm_uk · Post by **davidm_uk** » 19 May 2009 19:00

Res Private can be found via a link on this FHUG WIKI page:

http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... es_privata

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