Census entry and linking
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#996 Census entry and linking
A suggestion for PGV to allow a similar function that Research Assistant does, but is less intrusive than RA. RA will allow you to enter in tons of data for a group of people all at once, and it links everyone to that census. The problem is, from what I remember, is that afterwards, you aren't able to edit it without another RA session with it. The end result of RA on census tasks is messy, but I have an idea to make it really nice and afterwards, usable!
Most of it is already done.
When you go to a family page, i.e., F016, you are given the option already to ADD from a dropdown, a CENSUS. A form already comes up with the parents linked together and allows you to enter in basic information such as census date, place, age, and allows you to link a multimedia file (the census image) to this event as well.
All of that is already existing. The new part could be as follows;
When you pull up this same page, it could list the family members, such as husband, wife and the kids. Beside each one will be a check-box. If the person is listed in the actual census, you can put a check in their box to indicate they were present.
When this form is completed and saved, each person that had a check-mark beside their name when filling out the single form should each show a census event, with the date, place, age, and even a thumbnail of the census image if you linked one.
This may seem like a minor change, but it will allow those that are entering in census data to cut their time maybe ten-fold, especially when dealing with farm families with 12 children. That's a lot of data entry and multimedia linking!
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Similar to RFE:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1211512&group_id=55456&atid=477082
Could be combined AFAIAC
Only problem I see with this suggestion is the addition of the first census, where we sometimes generate the information that leads to the adding of the children's data (name, DOB and POB). If that information isn't pre-entered under this timeline, they would not be available to 'check off'.
-stephen
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Indeed, this might pose a problem to new gedcoms, adding people and census links at the same time. I guess most people would export a gedcom from their previous genealogy app and switch over to PGV. From there, the census tags (and their associated facts) are the only things to create as the source/census would be pre-existing as are probably the people being researched. Most of this data would have to be entered in eventually anyhow. I guess that might come down to a work-flow question.
Again, this is just a suggestion for simplicity over comprehensiveness. You have your census and your family and it has to be entered into PGV. You get a few facts to enter in, exactly like what you get when you add a census to an INDI. For those that want to have the census transcribed, it might be better for something more complex, since most of the data won't be repeated. I guess RA is the answer for that situation, but I'm only concerned about the census tag itself showing up on the family members without re-entering the same data a dozen times. I think I might be asking for something a little different.
For this to be combined, perhaps it can allow basic info entered, and if you hit a "more" or "advanced" button, it opens up the window to allow much more detail and a dropdown of which decade's census you want to transcribe/document. I think that is going beyond the scope of what I was thinking about, but I'm here to offer ideas and maybe functional ways to make them reality.
-Marshall
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Marshall
First let me agree with you on the RA census. Its overly complex, and (currently) extremily bug-ridden.
Census entry is very complex, and will embody pretty well every known family relationship you could imagine, so no solution will be 100%. I'm sure I, and others could find a dozen reasons why your solution is not perfect.
BUT, I'm not going to. In fact I would like to totally endorse your suggestion, and pray that some kind developer will pick it up and give it a go. I can think of a number of enhancements, but lets start easy, and get something (ANYTHING) that will make entering census data, even in a basic form, easier for all of us. Most other attempts, like RA, have tried to do too much, and thats probably why they have either failed or never got off the ground.
There is one proposal in existence that I think, comes close to this, but as far as I know has never been fully developed. Have a look at
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1564752&group_id=55456&atid=477082
Census isn't mentioned, but the principle is similar.
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Of course, I'm not looking for perfect. I'm looking for practical. I'm sure it won't fit everyone. I would imagine it will fit many though. I think we start small, with what we (meaning the programmers, not myself of course) know. This is why I suggested the existing format for entering in census data for one person, and once we have something that will propagate the data to others, I think the hard part would be done. Also I think once this is tackled, the RFE that you linked would be much closer to implementing. Someone even mentioned the checkboxes so you get the data sent to the right INDIs.
And since you mentioned it, yes, the link you sent was similar in principle to what I was suggesting. I don't know how far the work went on that, but it made it into SVN 4.2 last year. It might be worth looking into to see if they had an elementary idea for making it work and applying what worked and what didn't into what could be done with it. Of course, I wouldn't want to start the dev's down a path that will limit the capabilities in the future. I guess the RA comes to mind, but I think the RA was a brilliant work, and is useful in the right application. I suppose the same could be said of my RFE. I think it could make a nice collaboration tool (the RA I mean) for todo lists, and multiple tasks and managing them. I like the TODO tag that I've seen recently, and I use that a fair amount. Kudos to whoever put that together!
Anyhow, I'm wandering outside the scope of this topic, so I'll quit blabbering....
-Marshall