* Lookup Missing Census Facts

[tatewise]

This Plugin has just be updated to cope with the World Search introduced on FindMyPast UK and modified in other FimdMyPast country versions.

Following some discussions on FHU E-mails it appears that there are alternative search dialogues, and some offer far more options than others.
I am considering updating this Plugin again to replace:
http://search.{FMP_URL}/results/{RegionCode}-records-in-census-land-and-substitutes|surveys
where {RegionCode} is the Census country
with
http://search.{FMP_URL}/results/world-records/{RecordCode}
where {Record Code} is the specific Census country and year.
This latter format supports gender=male|female and marriage condition, etc...

[spotter]

When running this for all my relatives, it stopped at record ID 1132 and gave me this message:
...Historian\Plugins\Lookup Missing Census Facts.fh_lua attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'intBirth_Year' (a string value)
stack traceback:
...Historian\Plugins\Lookup Missing Census Facts.fh_lua in function 'StrAncestryCo'
...Historian\Plugins\Lookup Missing Census Facts.fh_lua in function 'RunLookup'
...Historian\Plugins\Lookup Missing Census Facts.fh_lua in function <...Historian\Plugins\Lookup Missing Census Facts.fh_lua:2402>
(tail call): ?
etc.
======
Is there anything I can do to correct this?
thanks
Simon

[tatewise]

Sorry about that Simon.
I have been working on some further refinements to this Plugin and in rare cases get the same error.
It is an oversight in the Plugin when an Individual has absolutely no Birth details, not even when estimated from other Events and Relations.

The easiest workaround is to temporarily give Individual with ID 1132 a Birth Event with a Date that is your best guess.

I plan to update the Plugin next week, and the fix for this problem will be included.

[tatewise]

The Lookup Missing Census Facts Version 3.3 is in the Plugin Store.

It fixes the problem discussed above, adds some Irish and early UK Census Records, allows all the Lookup Web Page columns to be sorted, and provides extra details on the website lookup links.

[johnmorrisoniom]

Hi Mike,
Just tried v 3.3 and on a USA descendants search, it is using maiden name of married women for the search.

[tatewise]

Whoops!!!
Sorry John, that got upset with the latest changes, but will be fixed in the Plugin Store on Monday.

In the meantime my OneDrive has Lookup Missing Census Facts V3.4 you can try.

[johnmorrisoniom]

Hi Mike,
Just realised as well that your plugin is ignoring Isle of Man census (IOM) entries when working out missing census details. I have separate countries for the UK (I do not use UK census) I have England , Ireland, Scotland, Wales & Channel isles all as separate countries.

[tatewise]

I am not sure what you mean by "ignoring".

[johnmorrisoniom]

I normally have the tick box checked to "Use factes to determine etc"

In the following test run for USA census, Moses Brew has a valid census entry for both 1871 and 1881 census in the Isle of Man, so is obviously not in the US (He emigrated about 1890).

LUMSF.JPG (53.7 KiB) Viewed 11885 times

[tatewise]

The plugin is not that clever and requires an exactly matching date for the USA Census to exclude him.
Particularly, as the dates are months apart and it is feasible he could be in both USA and IOM on the Census dates.
See the plugin FAQ for full details.

[jmurphy]

This is a tremendously useful plugin. I wish I had installed it a month ago, before I signed up to Find My Past to look for missing census records.

I'm especially impressed with the feature that allows me to enter a residence with the UK Census Date for the people who are in the USA, so that the plugin can see that and know that they won't be in the country on Census Day.

I have one teeny problem -- I see census facts reported for some individuals as 'missing' where the census facts do exist. These are not cases where I attached a census on Ancestry, which records the census as a residence fact. These are census records that I entered with AS yesterday.

I know there were a few times where I aborted the data entry with AS -- part of the reason I'm using this plugin now is to find those glitches. But I'm looking at an individual right now where the plugin's report says there is no 1881 Census entry for him, and the census tab on the property box clearly shows the 1881 Census. It is the only census I have entered for him so far.

Looking in the facts tab shows that the census event was recorded with the proper date for Census Day.

What else should I look for, to debug these glitches?

Edited to add:

I installed the AS Data Entry plugin this morning, so AS and FH should be on the same project from now on.

And now that I've corrected a missing census fact on a different individual, and re-saved my FH file and re-run the plugin, the 1881 census fact is recognized just like it should have been.

Step 1: close the old tab on the browser so you don't look at the results from the previous search.

When in doubt, re-save in FH and run the plugin again?

As I said earlier, this is an experimental project, so no actual data will be harmed.

[tatewise]

Thank you for the positive feedback on this Plugin.

The Plugin does NOT give you a subscription to either Ancestry or Find My Past, so you still need your subscription to retrieve detailed Census transcripts & images.

If the Plugin lists as missing any Census Event that should exist, then double check that the Date shown in the Plugin Lookup Search web-page is exactly the same as in the Census Event. i.e. 3 Apr 1881
Ensure you are checking the same Individual by opening their Property Box via their name in the Result Set created by the Plugin, and double check they have the same Record Id.

You should not need to save your FH database for the Plugin to work, but if there is any unsaved data it will prompt you to Save, although that is still optional.

I am not aware of anyone else having this problem. Are you sure you were running the Plugin and checking the Individual in the same Project?

If you wish to submit an illustrative screenshot of any problem, then use any screen grabber such as the built-in Windows Snipping Tool and use the Upload attachment option in the Post Reply/Edit Post window.

[jmurphy]

If the Plugin lists as missing any Census Event that should exist, then double check that the Date shown in the Plugin Lookup Search web-page is exactly the same as in the Census Event.
Ensure you are checking the same Individual by opening their Property Box via their name in the Result Set created by the Plugin, and double check they have the same Record Id.
...
I am not aware of anyone else having this problem. Are you sure you were running the Plugin and checking the Individual in the same Project?

I was pulling up the individual's record from the result set in FH after running the Plugin. For some reason, the initial run of the Plugin was not picking up the 1881 Census for a couple of individuals.

The only thing unusual that I can see about that census is that three of the people in the household are listed as Visitors (they are related to the Head, but the census didn't say so). The census tab in the property box was showing the 1881 Census, but for some reason it was still coming up as missing in the report.

(I did have one other instance, but in that case, the individual's census fact was actually missing, so I must have made a mistake and skipped that person when entering the record in AS.)

Aside from this one hiccup, the plugin is working quite well. I am entering the UK census date for US residence facts for those people who were in the USA, and the plugin sees that and stops telling me that I am missing their 1901 Census facts. Since the family went back and forth many times during this period, this is extremely useful. My thanks to all!

One more note for those who can't afford to subscribe to Ancestry and Find My Past continuously.

For Ancestry, the rule seems to be, to be able to see what you've paid for, it must be attached to an online tree. If you save an item in your Shoebox, trying to retrieve it later after your subscription or free access period runs out sends you to the "don't you want to subscribe" page.

If you purchase a transcript or image on Find My Past, either by PPV or subscription, there should be an entry under the "My Records" section for that item, and when you run a search for it again, the purchased transcript or image should have a little mark on the image icon or document icon, showing that you have paid for it. These should still available for you to view and download after your subscription runs out (but if you buy PPV credits, beware of expiration dates). So if there's anything you want to retrieve later, make sure the icons for both the image and the transcription are ticked. If you look at the image but don't look at the transcription for anyone in the household, you won't be able to see the transcription later, which means you wont be able to see the full reference number for the Census page, and will be reduced to reading whatever bits of it you can off the census image itself.

For the most part, FamilySearch does not give you the reference number. FreeCEN does, but of course there's no guarantee that they will have coverage.

Jan

[jmurphy]

I have a new theory.

I have encountered another instance of the Plugin reporting a missing census fact for a person where the census fact is in Family Historian.

For both instances, I chose the option "all the relations of a chosen person" and the person chosen had one and only one census fact recorded in Family Historian at that time.

E.g. the chosen person was born in 1905, and the 1911 Census was the only UK Census possible for her. The Plugin has her 1911 Census in the missing-census results, but doesn't prompt to search the 1911 Census for anyone else in her household -- it recognizes the 1911 census fact for her father, stepfather, and two older sisters (born 1898 and 1900).

Could there be a bug which requires that the chosen person must have some kind of result in the result table?

Edited to add: no, I just tested it by choosing another person in my file born after 1901, for which a 1911 census fact was present, and I was unable to reproduce that result.

[jmurphy]

Here are the screen grabs for Fanny's 1911 Census fact:

1911-results.PNG (11.5 KiB) Viewed 11726 times

propertybox.PNG (9.87 KiB) Viewed 11726 times

[tatewise]

Interesting!
Is that scenario currently repeatable?
Could you post the Facts tab for Fanny?
(Any private details can be redacted.)

[jmurphy]

Here's the top of the Facts tab (this file is missing her four marriages and other later information). You can see the messy results of my saving every birth event as an alternate on Ancestry, in a futile attempt to save which database had which information in it.

'Hapton' in the Residence fact is brightsolid's transcription for 'Slapton', which I've left in place as a reminder that their transcription is wrong.

fanny-facts.png (12.64 KiB) Viewed 11713 times

P.S. Yes, before I made the snip, I ran the plugin again and got the same results as shown above.

P.P.S. Silly me, I just noticed your location in Torbay. We're practically neighbors!

Before I started doing the research, my husband only 'knew' that his great-grandfather had come 'from Torquay'.

[jmurphy]

... and the mystery deepens.

I have been entering Baptism records with AS today.

I just entered Fanny's Baptism and re-saved in FH after I was done.

Now the census plugin works as it should, and despite being the chosen person for the "all relatives" option, the Plugin recognizes her 1911 census fact, and she does not appear in the results as someone whose 1911 Census needs to be looked for.

I wonder if there is something funny about the birth facts created by Ancestry?

I am sorry that I did not saved a copy of the glitchy GEDCOM before starting to enter the Baptisms. I suppose I could download another copy of the GEDCOM and see if the freshly-downloaded GEDCOM exhibits the same strange behavior.

If I see it happening with another individual, I will stop and save a copy of the file.

[tatewise]

I have resolved the Mystery of the Missing Census!!!

Presumably the missing Census Events were all recently added using AS.
AS probably simply inserts them after other Facts rather than in the correct Date order.
FH helpfully lists Facts in Date order, but that may NOT be their database Record order.
To see the actual order, on the Facts tab click the List in Record Order button, or view the All tab.
I suspect that if you inspect Record Order, the missing Census Events will appear after Facts with a later Date.

For efficiency, when the Plugin searches for a Census Event it stops when it finds a Fact with a later Date.
So if the Census Event is not in Date order it explains why the Census Event is not being detected.

As soon as any Facts are entered for the Individual by hand, then FH sorts them into Date order.
Alternatively, you can use Tools > Re-order Out-of-Sequence Data before running the Plugin.

It might be possible for AS to be updated to insert Facts in Date order.
I will discuss this with the author Nick Walker.

[jmurphy]

Ha!

I opened Family Historian to look at my file, and look what tip was presented to me:

In some reports such as the Individual Summary Report, Family Historian displays spouses, children and events in the order that they are stored in your file. You can get Family Historian to check the whole file for any that are not in chronological order (and re-sequence them using "Re-order Out-of-sequence Data" on the Tools Menu.

You have described correctly what was happening with the file. I had added facts to the Ancestry tree any which way, and had not yet asked FH to display everything in order. I usually do that as I go along, examining the facts for each person, and saying "oh wait these are out of order" and fixing them -- having forgotten about the entry on the Tools menu that would allow me to do it in one fell swoop.

Is it time for the obligatory battle cry of the FHUG Rootsweb list? "Thanks, Mike, it's easy when you know how."

We have lived in Torbay for 11 years, so if you need any particular local knowledge just ask.
I have added more details about Kingsbridge and the UK Registration process in your Research posting.

Thanks very much for your kind offer. I'm afraid some of the local knowledge I need would require a TARDIS, though.

[tatewise]

The discussion about multiple facts has been moved to Multiple Events and/or Assertions (11274).