Individuals list not showing all birth dates
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Good morning all,
in my list of individuals I have some birth dates which will be dd/mm/yyyyy or just some yyyy. However, I have a lot of blank dates when in fact those individuals do have birth dates. Can someone please advise?
Thanks
Paul
As a pure guess I would think those individuals might have more than one BIRT event in their record, with one of them being blank.
Have you checked the GEDCOM record for those people?
If thats not it, can you give us a URL for you site so we can look?
This is the raw GEDCOM for the one that does list a DOB
0 @I94@ INDI
1 NAME Margaret /Gofton/
2 GIVN Margaret
2 SURN Gofton
1 SEX F
1 BIRT
2 DATE 11 AUG 1800
2 PLAC Penny-Hill Farm, Bedlington, Northumberland, England
1 FAMC @F33@
2 PEDI birth
1 CHAN
2 DATE 04 DEC 2009
3 TIME 16:13:27
2 _PGVU gedadmin
1 CHR
2 DATE 14 SEP 1800
2 PLAC Newburn, Northumberland, England
2 NOTE Parish Church
3 CONT Found on Familysearch
3 CONT Northumberland, Newburn, 1764-1849 image 96 of 452
1 FAMS @F43@
and this is the raw GEDCOM for the one that doesn't list a DOB in the individuals list
0 @I141@ INDI
1 NAME Margaret /Gofton/
2 GIVN Margaret
2 SURN Gofton
1 SEX F
1 BIRT
2 DATE BET APR AND JUN 1936
2 PLAC Tynemouth, Northumberland, England
1 FAMC @F50@
2 PEDI birth
1 CHAN
2 DATE 20 DEC 2009
3 TIME 14:35:57
2 _PGVU gedadmin
Look at the 'Margaret Gofton' entries in this list
: http://www.paulmcgrath.net/ged/indilist.php?surname=GOFTON&ged=Gofton+Family+Tree
Thanks
Paul
2 DATE BET APR AND JUN 1936
This is not a valid entry. It should probably look like
2 DATE BET APR 1936 AND JUN 1936
Tip, when you are entering data, you can type "Q2 1936", and it will get translated to the correct format.
I have been typing in 'apr - jun 1936' and it autocorrects to 'BET APR AND JUN 1936' so I presumed that was the PGV way.
Not my error.
The minus is just a shortcut to convert "X-Y" into "BET X AND Y". e.g. "1939-1945" becomes "BET 1939 AND 1945". You still need to get your X and Y right. As I said earlier, you probably wanted to use the shortcut "q2 1936".
To fix this, it is probably quicker to edit the raw gedcom file. Use the export option from the manage gedcoms page to write the data to the file in your index directory. Edit using your favourite text editor, then re-import.
If you have access to the vi editor (for example, gvim for windows). The following command will add the missing years.
:%s/^\(2 DATE BET \)\( AND \)\(\)$/\1 \3\2\3/
If you're not familiar with vi, just open the file, press escape, and type these exact characters(!) Then type ZZ to exit.
I'm sure there are other ways to do this. This is just the editor I've used for the last 25 years.
Paul:
Actually, it IS your error, since you didn't enter the date range correctly.
The extensive help text associated with dates clearly tells you that you that the year is required for all dates. It doesn't talk at all about any automatic correction to what you enter.
We won't be doing anything about this "error", so you will need to correct your database manually.
The easiest way to do this might be to export your database to a GEDCOM, download and edit that GEDCOM using any old text editor, and then upload and re-import the modified GEDCOM. You need to inspect every line that contains "DATE BET" or "DATE FROM"
I'm sure you know that the "BET" format is used for events that occur only once (such as birth or death or graduation), while the "FROM" format is used for events that span a period of time (such as RESI or OCCU).
;-)
OKAY! I'll give that a go. My web server is a WAMP server so I'll try doing it in notepad+ or something like that.
Thank you for your help and I'll use the Q2 shorthand in the future.
Merry Christmas
Paul
Just edited the two 'Margaret Gofton' DOBs adding the year after the first month and they now appear correctly in the individuals list.
thank you very much
Paul
canajun2eh
MY error is two fold, one (personal criticism) : not reading the documentation which clearly states: enter dates as 'BET 1 Jan 1907 AND 20 Mar 1907'
The second error is (hidden criticism of system) the code autocorrects 'month year - month year' as 'BET MONTH YEAR AND MONTH YEAR' whereas I incorrectly assumed it would be intelligent enough to correct 'MONTH - MONTH YEAR'. This is a minor issue and solely born out of my incorrect use of it. That is what forums are for unless you have so much time on your hands that you can read the entire documentation.
You state:
> It doesn't talk at all about any
> automatic correction to what you
> enter.
Whereas fisharebest says:
> Tip, when you are entering data, you
> can type "Q2 1936", and it will get
> translated to the correct format.
So MY error again in using the incorrect terminology: TRANSLATED instead of AUTOCORRECT
Merry Christmas
One problem in trying to second guess what is meant by
MONTH - MONTH YEAR
is what to do with … DEC - JAN 1906 … for instance. You really do need the year in both sections. Same would apply to
BET 25 AND 31 DEC 1904
Again you need to put in DEC 1904 into the first date to make it valid (or whatever MONTH YEAR you really mean).
Although lots of second guessing could be programmed in, for a lot of people a lot of the time, it will still be wrong guesses, and it'll make more and more of a mess.
BET JAN 1906 AND MAR 1906
infers a specific event happened between 1 JAN 1906 and 31 MAR 1906. That much is programmed in, though you can add a specific day into one of the dates if you like. Months otherwise start at the 1st and end at the 28/29/30/31 appropriately.
FROM JAN 1906 TO Mar 1906
infers a continuing event that started at the FROM date and lasted until the TO date … usually residency, military service, occupation. I suppose Marriage too, though we tend to abide by the marriage event being the exchange of vows on a specific date. One for further discussion maybe.
Mark
Mark,
Good point well made
Paul