* Automated internet Marriages lookup

[tatewise]

The attached Lookup Missing BMD Records Plugin Version 1.0 Date 23 Oct 2016 fixes the bug reported by Brent and does treat Qualified Dates as inexact so includes such Events in the Result Set and lookup search.

So the only Events excluded now are those with a simple full unqualified 'dd mmm yyyy' exact Date and a Citation, or those that match a non-blank Quarter Date Source Type, or those with so little information that not even an estimated Date is available.

[Attachment deleted as now superseded by V2.0 in Plugin Store.]

[jbtapscott]

Mike - I've given this latest version (1.0) a couple of runs now and am NOT seeing the problems I reported earlier (viz. Event Data showing against the wrong person in the Record Set). I'll carry on running tests today in between "gardening duties" and report back if I find any problems.

[tatewise]

Brent, the problem was triggered by a Family with a 1st Child Birth Date but no Marriage Event, followed by a Family with a Marriage Event. The bug made the following Family inherit the previous 1st Child Birth Date and so became included by mistake with previous Family details.

[brianlummis]

Mike

I have just discovered an error message when running v1.0 of the Plugin. The settings used were:

Settings.JPG (48.43 KiB) Viewed 12839 times

and the error message after selecting the chosen person was:

[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] attempt to perform arithmetic on field 'Span' (a string value)
stack traceback:
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function 'LookupFactData'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:4127: in function 'TblIndividualDetails'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:4373: in function 'RecordsMissing'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:4482: in function 'RunLookup'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function <[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:3168>
(tail call): ?
[C]: in function 'MainLoop'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function 'ShowDialogue'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function 'GUI_MainDialogue'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:4537: in main chunk


I have closed and reopened FH to see if that made a difference but I am still getting the same message.

Brian

[tatewise]

Thank you Brian, try attached Lookup Missing BMD Records Plugin Version 1.1 Date 24 Oct 2016 that should fix it.

The problem is triggered by a Family with no Marriage Event and 1st Born Child Date is a textual "Date Phrase" with no actual Date. Might that scenario fit one of the Ancestors chosen?

[Attachment deleted as now superseded by V2.0 in Plugin Store.]

[brianlummis]

Mike

The Plugin now runs but I have been unable to find any example of a Family with no Marriage Event and 1st Born Child Date is a textual "Date Phrase" with no actual Date.

There are however some other inconsistencies. Firstly the Event Data in the Result Set differs from the Individual's own data. For example, the first line gives the Event Data as "Born 29 June 1823 in Stoke Ash, Suffolk" whereas the Born Fact reads Birth Date: 19 April 1887 Place: Thornham Magna, Suffolk.

Secondly one Individual appears twice in the Result List (which is 25 lines only). I cannot see any obvious reason why this should be, so perhaps you can let me know what information will help to find the reason for this.

Brian

[brianlummis]

Correction - The reason she appears twice is because she married twice - so ignore my last paragraph.

Brian

[tatewise]

Don't worry about the problem scenario, it may be triggered by other conditions too, but only when there is no Marriage Event and a 1st Born Child. The problem Family will NOT appear in the Result Set so you would have to look through all other Ancestor Families. Whatever your scenario happens to be, it has been resolved by the updated Plugin.

As it says in plugins:help:lookup_missing_bmd_records:result_set|> Lookup Missing BMD Records ~ Result Set Help & Advice page "For Marriage lookups this can be the Birth of the 1st Child for the Individual shown." i.e. when the Marriage Event is missing.
Note that Event Data entries will typically appear twice, once for each Parent. If you click on the Event Data column heading they should be in pairs, except for Single Parent Families.

Yes, I was about to say the Individual has two or more Family records, not necessarily Marriages.

[brianlummis]

Mike

Unfortunately I can't reconcile the Event Data with any fact relating to the Individual or his Family. Maybe another example might be more revealing.

The Event Data on the next line is "Born 27 August 1907 in Marylebone Road, London" for a Richard Lummis who has a birth date of circa 1719 so I am a bit puzzled as to how this date nearly 200 years later is connected apart from the 1907 person being the Husband of the Great (x5) Granddaughter of the person born in 1719!

Am i missing something?

Brian

[tatewise]

No you are not missing something. It is possible that some scenarios I have not considered are handled incorrectly by the Plugin.

Initially, the Result Set and Lookup Web Page entries are in the same order in associated pairs.
In other words the 1st Result Set entry goes with the 1st Lookup Web Page entry, and so on, row by row.

So the 1st Result Set entry has Event Data showing 1st Child "Born 29 June 1823 in Stoke Ash, Suffolk".
What does the 1st Lookup Web Page entry say?
If you actually click the Ancestry/BMD lookup, what details are shown in the Edit Search on left?
(You do NOT have to be logged in to Ancestry/BMD to review those details.)
In the Result Set click on the Individual to open their Property Box.
Is their 1st Child at the bottom shown as Born 29 June 1823 in Stoke Ash, Suffolk?
Does this Individual have other Families/Spouses i.e. more than one Spouse tab?
If so, what are the key details on each Spouse tab?

Repeat that exercise on 2nd entry, with Event Data showing 1st Child "Born 27 August 1907 in Marylebone Road, London".
What does the 2nd Lookup Web Page entry say?
The Plugin thinks that the Richard Lummis in first Result Set column has no Marriage and a 1st Child with those Birth details.

[brianlummis]

Mike

I have now resolved my question about the first listed as I find that she had children before her marriage with no known father and the first born's date of birth is the same as the Event Date. Unfortunately I was looking at the Property Box when examining the dates and didn't look at the blank spouse tab for other children. Just for clarity I give below the details you requested.

On the first Lookup Web Page the output in column order is

• 1
  1823 Marriage
  PALMER, Elizabeth [44]
  1795-bef1866
  ...of Elizabeth PALMER
  29 Jun 1823
  PALMER, Daniel [1578]
  ELMER, Elizabeth [1579]

and the Edit Search Details on FMP - as I am not using Ancestry are

First Name Elizabeth Last Name Palmer Year 1823 Year Of Birth 1795 Where Stoke Ash, Suffolk

For the next name listed with the 1907 Event Date the Lookup Page output is

• 2
  1744 Marriage
  LUMMIS, Richard [130]
  1719?-bef1804
  ...of Richard LUMMIS and Elizabeth
  bef 1744
  LUMMIS, John [136]
  DICKERSON, Ester [137]

and the Edit Search Details are

First Name Richard Last Name Lummis Year 1744 Year Of Birth 1719 Spouse's First Name Elizabeth

Unfortunately there is no reference to the 1907 date anywhere. However I have noticed that there are a few names listed who have children with unnamed fathers and I wonder if this has some bearing on the results. I am not sure if it is relevant but the 1907 date also belongs to a child with no father.

Brian

[tatewise]

Thank you for that Brian. So row 1 is resolved, and we must focus on row 2, which does exhibit an odd Event Data entry.

The Event Data for that row 2 should be Married before 1744.
It relates to LUMMIS, Richard with Record Id 130.

If you double-click the Born 27 August 1907 in Marylebone Road, London item it will open a Property Box.
Please click on the Display in Focus Window magnifying-glass icon in toolbar at top of this Property Box.
That should display the Person and the Parents, Spouse, and Children of that person.
What are all their Record Id shown in square brackets?
(If not shown then click Customize View... and tick Record Ids.)

Do any of them appear in the Result Set, which should be in Record Id order.

How are they related to the starting person you chose, and to LUMMIS, Richard.

Please also try the attached Lookup Missing BMD Records Plugin Version 1.2 Date 24 Oct 2016 that has a related minor correction to the Event Data construction that might just fix the problem.

[Attachment deleted as now superseded by V2.0 in Plugin Store.]

[brianlummis]

I have followed your guidance and the Record ID that appears on both the Spouses and Children tab of the person born 1907 AND in the Result Set is that person's Mother. Richard Lummis's relationship to her is Great (x4) Great Uncle. However it may be pertinent that the Mother, Kate Lummis follows Richard Lummis in the Result Set.

I have run the new Plugin but it throws up another error - this time its:

[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:4501: attempt to index field 'Fact' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:4501: in function 'RunLookup'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function <[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:3170>
(tail call): ?
[C]: in function 'MainLoop'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function 'ShowDialogue'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function 'GUI_MainDialogue'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:4539: in main chunk

Brian

[tatewise]

Excellent Brian, all those clues have narrowed down the scope of the problem and will lead to a full solution.

What was happening is the 2nd entry was somehow losing its Event Data and I think you will find that all the subsequent Event Data has jumped up one row and should belong to the Individual on the next row all the way down the Result Set, and probably the very last row has no Event Data.

Hopefully, the attached Lookup Missing BMD Records Plugin Version 1.3 Date 24 Oct 2016 is that solution.

[Attachment deleted as now superseded by V2.0 in Plugin Store.]

[jbtapscott]

Mike - can you clarify how the "Use their events...." option is applied please.

I am doing a UK Marriages check, with this option ticked, and am getting records included in the Result Set which have the Marriage fact Place containing a non-UK location (eg " , , , Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea"). In several of these the Fact also has a "full" date. In all the cases I have checked so far there is no Source Citation against the Marriage fact - the data came from a report (or similar) that I had received and as such the Source Citation was against the Individuals Name rather than being repeated against all the individuals facts. That said, I would have expected the "Use their events" option to have excluded them because of the non UK place in the fact.

I should add that I have seen a similar occurrence with the birth check, so perhaps I am misunderstanding how this works?.

[brianlummis]

Thanks for the latest Plugin, Mike and I can confirm that it cures all the previous ills.

Looking back I can now see that you are correct in realising that, if there was no Event Data, the subsequent entries jumped up to fill the space. I had a few of these and all the empty spaces were at the bottom of the Result Set.

One thing I have noticed is that if the Event Data refers to a marriage event with the narrative "Married ........." , this advises the user that there is a date but no citation. It may be worth highlighting this in the Result Set section of the Help & Advice, as it is quite possible that the Source is already known to the User and it has not been recorded.

As a side note, your Plugin has found a possible marriage for one of my many John Lummis's in 1687 which may knock down a brick wall, so this has been a worthwhile exercise.

I will run a few more checks later when I get back from a day at the golf course!

Brian

[tatewise]

Phew! That is good.

The Result Set page refers to the F.A.Q. page that explains the factors for missing records.
See plugins:help:lookup_missing_bmd_records:frequently_asked_questions|> Lookup Missing BMD Records ~ Frequently Asked Questions.
Does it still need more?

There could be a Citation but the Date is inexact.
Double-click on the Married... item to open that Event in the Property Box to check its details.

[brianlummis]

Mike

You are of course correct that there could be a marriage with a Citation and an Inexact Date - it was just that on my small sample it was the other way round and led me to the wrong conclusion that it would only happen with a date and no citation.

I have now run the Plugin using all my data so that I can group the differing Event Data output in the Result Set and check to see if it conforms to the section of the FAQ headed "What factors determine that a BMD Record is missing?". The one statement that seems at odds with the output is "If no Date is available then the Record is deemed NOT missing as no relevant search is possible". I have a number of marriages with no Date but there is a Marriage Fact and a citation and these are included in the Result set as one would hope. Quite often these are marriages identified in a Census. However the FAQ indicates that this is deemed as NOT missing. I think that you are trying to say that "If there are no relevant Dates..."

More of an observation than anything else is that I have many in the Result Set with nothing in the Event Data column, although I can see why they are listed. It does not worry me as the main objective is to identify those where a search would be useful. I was just wondering if you were expecting there to be a lot of blanks and, if not, do you wish to investigate. For example when running the Plugin for Deaths, around 90% have no Event Data. In the Help section you state that sometimes there will be no Event Data whereas my experience is quite often.

One other thing that I have noticed is that although the full forenames are listed on the Lookup Web Page, the search on FMP is only on the first name. It would be better for the search to have all the known forenames so that the initial listing would have the most likely candidates at the top.

Brian

[jbtapscott]

Mike - in the FAQ it states "If Use their Events to decide if each person was at home or abroad on missing BMD Event dates is ticked, and the BMD Event has a Place that matches a foreign country, then that person is excluded from the search. " but I am finding records in the Result Sets that have a foreign country against the BMD Fact when I have that option ticked (I am searching for UK records). For example, in Births:

Births.JPG (20.21 KiB) Viewed 12747 times

and in Marriages:

Marriages.JPG (15.17 KiB) Viewed 12747 times

In all cases, including the above, the Source Citation is against the Name of the Individual (because the data for the person came from a report) rather than being repeated against each individual Fact. Based on the FAQ I would have expected them not to be included regardless of whether there is a Source Citation against the BMD fact or not.

[tatewise]

Brian & Brent, thanks for the feedback.

Brian:-
If a Marriage Event has no Date but is included in the search, then there must be a 1st Child Birth Date being used as the Family Date as listed in the Web Search Page.

If there is no Event Data then there must be an estimated Birth/Death Date derived from other facts.
I assumed that most Individuals would have a Birth and Death event, even if little or nothing is known.
I will elaborate the Help & Advice page about the circumstances of blank Event Data.

Ancestry & FMP search criteria are somewhat different.
Ancestry will list records even if details such as middle name or place name do not match, unless you select Exact.
FMP seems to be more pedantic and omits records where such names do not match, even if Variants is chosen.
So the Plugin includes fewer details in FMP than in Ancestry, but you can use Edit Search to adjust the number of records found both up and down by removing or adding details.

Brent:-
The foreign country filter is quite tricky.
Currently the Plugin actually only excludes a limited list of foreign countries, mostly based on the countries available in the BMD records drop-list.
It does not exclude every Place that does not match the chosen country in case the user is not using conventional Region, Country format. Also some Indian places and other colonies may appear in UK records.
I will improved the explanation in the Help & Advice along the lines of saying it excludes foreign countries whose records are more likely to be found in one of the other BMD records countries.

[brianlummis]

I think that we are both saying the same thing about the "No date" question as the marriage is listed, which is what is needed, and the Date used is derived from elsewhere being the 1st Child Birthdate. When reading through the FAQ the previous items in that section all refer to the Event date either directly or indirectly so the reader is likely to think that the statement about No Date is also referring to the Event Date. Hence my reference to Relevant Date, although I am not sure if this is the correct terminology.

My experience with Names in FMP seems to differ from yours as if I put in all the forenames and tick variants, I get those that are the closest match first and then those with matching first name followed by other possible variants. So for example, if I search for the birth in a single year of Mary Ann Smith with first name variant ticked , I get a long list of Mary Ann Smith's followed by other Mary Ann possibilities then those with the single name of Mary Smith. Maybe the use of Smith is not the best to use but I think it demonstrates what I was trying to say. I have noticed that there can be a few discrepancies which it appears to be due to the way that FMP treats "Relevance" (it seems that capital letters for names take preference over mixed case) but that can be quickly remedied by changing the order from Relevance to First Name Descending, particularly if it is a long list. I don't know if there is a way to make this the preferred sort order but, if it is possible, then that would be ideal.

Brian

[johnmorrisoniom]

FMP used to behave as Mike says, but has got better in the last 6-12 months.

[tatewise]

Try the attached Lookup Missing BMD Records Plugin Version 1.4 Date 26 Oct 2016 and check updated Help & Advice.

It uses full forenames for FMP just like for Ancestry.

It adds extra columns to the Result Set:-

• No. to correspond to the No. column in Web Search Page.
• Gen. Gap is generation gap between Individual and originally chosen root person
  (or File Root if Anyone via the Select Records dialogue was used).
  Negative for Ancestors. Positive for Descendants. 99 for unrelated.
• Relationship to <that person> [Rec Id] the relationship to the root person, if any.

This allows sorting on last two columns to bring generations together.

It fixes a problem with Date Phrases without an interpreted Date.

Many of the features added to this Plugin will appear in the Lookup Missing Census Facts Plugin in due course.

[Attachment deleted as now superseded by V2.0 in Plugin Store.]

[brianlummis]

Excellent, Mike. Not only have you covered all the points I raised, you have even added some new features which are extremely helpful. I have read through the Help and Advice section which appears to have all the information needed.

I hope that you have not had too many sleepless nights with this Plugin!

Many thanks.

Brian

[tatewise]

Lookup Missing BMD Records Plugin Version 2.0 Date 01 Nov 2016 is now in the Plugin Store and the prototype versions here will shortly be deleted. It is effectively the same as prototype Version 1.4 here.