Family Locations in FTAnalyzer

This discussion was started as an issue on support site. Trebor asked to continue it here...

I am concious that it will look odd my posting the back and forward so far. If this is inappropriate then I can delete it.

 

Where there is no date involved the "location" shows whatever is the most precise location for the individual or family. So it would return street, town, county, county over town, county, country. If there are several of same it picks the first location it came across unfortunately as you have noted this means it is a tad random.

Where its a census or other date in use it finds the location fact closest in time to the census or other date.

I'm open to suggestions as to how this could be made more intuitive.

 

The basic question is for an individual or a family what is the "best location" to show?

For a family you might think oh that's easy use the marriage location, but what if that is empty, or UNKNOWN yet there are other locations entered like the birth of the first child to the marriage. What do you choose?

When there are dates involved it is fairly simple you pick the fact with a valid location nearest the date. When its just a location you want how do you pick?

 

When you say "lead person" how do you define lead person? What rules determine the lead person in a family? The father? What if there is no father? etc

Locations takes a location record from any fact and decodes it using commas. So each comma separates part of the location. As it loads a file it tries to work out the country/county if those details are missing.

eg: many people don't bother entering a country name, some don't enter a county (or region) name. Thus if it can the program will "correct" this.

The locations tab then displays the various levels. Ideally in the countries tab all you would have is a list of countries recognisable by the UN or at least as they would commonly be known!!

However if you have missed out a country name then your countries tab might have odd things like "Lanccashire" this is because a typo in the name of the county meant the program didn't match up Lancashire and so left it alone. Fix the typo and that will be treated as Lancashire, England. Note you can double click on a location name to see who you have recorded at that location.

The idea is that if you want to tidy up your locations you can use the various tabs in order to see how consistent you have been. First fix up your countries to see if they all make sense as actual countries. Once you've got a lovely list of countries fixed. Have a look at the region tab and see if all the regions in your file make sense. Maybe you have England, Derby and England, Derbyshire? Or you have England, Srhopshire. etc The idea is you can weed out errors in the counties. Then look at parishes and weed out spelling mistakes and inconsistencies there etc etc.

Does that make it clearer?

 

Ok so father, mother, eldest child etc I can understand that. However what if the father exists but has no locations, do we then goto the mothers location? Then the children if she has no locations? When you say most recent location do you mean the one closest to the present day? That is then most likely to be the father's death location. Is this the best location to use for the family?

Note that the only locations actually used for the family itself are going to be marriage/divorce/etc facts ie: shared facts that affect both husband and wife. A family in GEDCOM terms is husband/wife plus children. So an individual will appear in multiple familes. eg: as a child in one family, as a husband/wife in another possibly more if there were multiple marriages etc.

The whole problem is that without a suitable date to go on a family location is tricky.

What might work is taking the marriage location, or if no marriage location then the one nearest the marriage date. That gives a proximity to the creation of that family unit that might give a decent location?

Note no one location is going to be perfect in all circumstances. This might at least be consistent.
I've tried this and it feels a bit better it is now using the location closest in date to the average of the families date facts (parents facts + childrens births).

 

A family in GEDCOM terms is one or more of husband/wife/children. There is no concept of location to determine families. Location has nothing to do with family groups the only thing I can possibly use as a family group is that which is present in the GEDCOM file.

So in your file the families are always husband/wife/children. An individual can be part of many families eg: as a child of one couple, as a child of another couple (2nd marriage of one of the parents for instance), as a husband/wife (again this can be in more than one couple).

Note that a family group COULD just be a single individual. It could just be a husband/wife, or it could be a traditional husband/wife + 2.4 children (well strictly speaking you can't have .4 of a child but you get the drift).

Note that people do not "leave" or "join" a family they are simultaneously members of multiple families. It is just in GEDCOM terms that a family is defined as a male/female/children (with one or more missing) note that there need not be a marriage. There doesn't have to be children. There doesn't have to be a male or a female either, a single person can be a family.

So whilst I'm happy to discuss the topic, it cannot be changed as a family is a fundamental building block of a GEDCOM file.

Basically you have individuals, groups of individuals called families and sources. Those are your three fundamental building blocks of GEDCOM files. Individuals and families then have Facts and notes and Facts have dates, locations and comments.

So a location is simply a piece of text in a fact. That fact is associated with an individual or family and can be referenced by one or more sources.

Thus determining a location for a family means looking at the family facts and the facts for the individuals in the family and picking the "best" one. How we determine the best one is the conundrum.

 

In GEDCOM terms a family is one or more of male/female/children. There is no limit on how many families a person can be a member nor any time restrictions. Someone is always typically a member of multiple GEDCOM families.

In your example your neighbour is a family of one. Your daughter is part of your family ie: you, your wife and your children. Regardless of the co-habiting/sleeping arrangements your daughter would NEVER stop being a member of your GEDCOM family. If you record her as being part of a family (again regardless of the marital status) with the neighbour then that family becomes a family of 2 but she is STILL in the GEDCOM family with you and your wife. Just as you are still in the family of your parents (regardless of their live/dead status).

The neighbour isn't a member of a single family AND a family with your daughter by merging with your daughter that "single" family becomes a couple family. Where it would be complex if for instance he had a previous partner you had entered into your database. Then he would be in a family with your daughter a family with his previous partner and a family as a child with his parents. If his parents had multiple partners in your database then you might well have recorded him as a child in multiple families noting a "step" relationship in which case he'd be part of a 4th family too.

Is this making sense? Someone is simultaneously part of many families. It is perhaps easier to see thinking about families in the 1800s rather than recent families as recent families you can get confused as the situation changes where as you already know it can't change for our ancestors.

PS. apologies if this example is too personal, I was trying to follow through on your question.