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Search For Individuals without sources

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Ian
2009-01-07
2013-05-29
  • Ian

    Ian - 2009-01-07

    Is there a good way to search for those individuals in the tree that do not have any sources?

    When I was first getting started, I just added people and did not cite anything..... now I would like to solve that issue, but what is the best way to search for those people that do not have a source of any kind...

    any ideas?

    Ian

     
    • Anonymous

      Anonymous - 2009-01-07

      Ian, I wish there was an easy answer to that dilemma. I could use it myself. Unfortuantely its not as simple as looking for individuals without sources, in my view. Whilst you can enter a source for an individual (a '1 level' source tag) its more valuable to enter '2 level' sources as part of each event. So you have a source for the Birth information, another for their baptism, their marriage, their death, and their burial - and so on. You'd need to write a routine to find and list everyone of these ideally. It could be huge.
      In my GEDCOM (still missing many more sources than I'm happy with) you will find very few level 1 sources.

      However, Greg did write a patch (I think its still in the patches section) for "people without a census record", so I guess that could be adapted to some extent.

      So, I tackle it in two ways:
      1 - create the sources whenever I find myself working on a particular individula or branch of the tree

      2 - make a concerted effort to tidy up my most direct lines (my personal ancestors rather than any other branch).

      (ps glad you got your advanced html block query sorted, while I was in bed asleep :-)  )

       
    • macalter

      macalter - 2009-01-07

      Kiwi:
      You say you say it's preferred not to use Level 1 SOUR but associate fact/event with SOUR (Level 2). Does that mean if birth, death, marriage all are from the same SOUR, you quote it 3 times? What I've been doing is when this happens, I use Level 1.
      I also use Level 1 when I find mention of a person by virtue of them being related to another. Then, when/if I find more concrete info about that person, I replace the Level 1 with a fact/event and Level 2 SOUR.

      I know there's no right/wrong way of doing genealogy but, being so new to it, might as well learn best practices, much as I tried when learning HTML. My records so far are about 1,500 and I've just started to do the bulk of entering into PGV so not too late. (My stuff is kept offline but can't be imported as it's too uncompliant to Gedcom. But that's another story :)

       
      • Greg Roach

        Greg Roach - 2009-01-07

        <<Does that mean if birth, death, marriage all are from the same SOUR, you quote it 3 times?>>

        Yes.

        What happens if you then get an occupation or some other event?  Your source is now against an event which it didn't supply.

         
    • KosherJava

      KosherJava - 2009-01-07

      I wish there was a way to search for individuals and families without sources.
      One of my greatest regrets about my initial data entry years ago was my lack of entering sources.

       
    • Anonymous

      Anonymous - 2009-01-07

      Mac

      Sorry, I certainly didn't mean to say "its preferred...". Thats not a concept I'm comfortable with :-)

      I think you are contradicting yourself to say both "I know there's no right/wrong way of doing genealogy" and "might as well learn best practices". As well as no right/wrong way, I don't believe there is 'best practice', other than perhaps strict GEDCOM specification, but even that has HUGE grey areas in its interpretation. Too much time on these forums has convinced me there are about as many ways to do things as there are people doing them. Just find the way that suits you.

      So the following is just my opinion.

      I wouldn't say I never use a level 1 source, but my main issue is that they only display on the Sources tab, so I suspect 90% of visitors never see them.
      When I do use them is, like you, when I have nothing more specific. For example, Uncle Fred tells me there was a cousin, born in 1845, died in 1846 - but I have no other information about that person. Then, if feeling lazy, I would enter "Uncle Fred" as a level 1 source. If I have more time, then yes, I would enter 'Uncle Fred" as the source for both the birth and death dates. That way the information is clearly shown on the Facts tab.

       
      • Greg Roach

        Greg Roach - 2009-01-07

        <<If I have more time, then yes, I would enter 'Uncle Fred" as the source for both the birth and death dates.>>

        To simplify this, there is a configuration option called "prefer level 2 sources".

        If you select this option, then when you add a new INDI/FAM and add a source, it gets added to the B/M/D by default, instead of to the INDI/FAM.

        Thus it takes no more time to add level 2 sources than level 1 sources.

         
    • macalter

      macalter - 2009-01-08

      Fish: I thought if I did the same SOUR for 3 Events/Facts, I'd be overdoing it :) Guess I was relying on the fact I have offline details for what's what. I'm not that far along so can change as I guess in the end, it will be better to cite each time.

      Kiwi: Thing my method seems in line with your comments even if I didn't explain well. I've got a ton of obits that mention other people. So, they don't have speific Event/Fact and I'll leave as Level 1 with no citation text. For the actual person the obit applies to, I use at Level 2 and quote the full obit as citation text. Same too with births, marriages etc.

      "Best practices" may not be entirely by-the-rules but by experience from people such as those who are helping me on this forum. That's much the way I'd do my HTML web page coding hence the allowance for HTML Transitional option.

      "To simplify this, there is a configuration option called "prefer level 2 sources". "

      Is this in 4.1.5 before I go looking - doesn't sound familiar. Dreamhost is dragging their feet about doing the update. Will bug them again soon so new  users aren't getting 4.1.5. installed.

       
    • Anonymous

      Anonymous - 2009-01-08

      <<Is this in 4.1.5 before I go looking >> - 'fraid not Mac. Its in 4.1.6.

      Release for 4.2 is getting close, so you'll need to talk to Dreamhost about whether thay can give you PHP 5.2.3 or higher (can't remeber if you already know that). If not, then I think Greg plans releasing a 4.1.7 version (4.1.6 plus all current patches). That will probably be the last thats compatible with PHP 4 though.

       
    • macalter

      macalter - 2009-01-08

      Okay, if 4.2 is getting real close, I'll warn Dreamhost so that they don't take 3 months! And bypass 4.1.6 as sounds like they won't get around to it. My PHP is current to most stable release which I believe is 5.2.3.
      I get this forum via email so have your note flagged to look for the feature.

      BTW: Found your old Error 8 reply and you said I need to reimport my gedcom to fix so can do that at the time of upgrading. By that time too I'll hopefully have all my Critical errors fixed so won't be as nervous to do so. (I vs. i/S vs s so broken link type problem)

       
      • Greg Roach

        Greg Roach - 2009-01-08

        <<Okay, if 4.2 is getting real close>>

        I was speaking to Gerry about this last night.  We've decided to aim for the very end of Jan.

         
    • macalter

      macalter - 2009-01-08

      I sent Dreamhost a guilt-trip email to give them heads up for 4.2 end of January start time. (Even if delayed, I want them looking for it!) It's not like them to be tardy with updates but I'm sure holidays don't help. (Merry Christmas to all those celebrating today, ?yesterday).

      Thanks. I'll still "complain" with 4.1.5 as that gives you a way to see if newer version addresses them <LOL!>. If I've not said it, even with it being more complex than Reunion, I am amazed with PGV and how much I've been able to accomplish in the year and  half I've used it (not steady throughout).

       
    • Victor H.

      Victor H. - 2009-01-08

      <<To simplify this, there is a configuration option called "prefer level 2 sources".  If you select this option, then when you add a new INDI/FAM and add a source, it gets added to the B/M/D by default, instead of to the INDI/FAM. Thus it takes no more time to add level 2 sources than level 1 sources.>>

      Ho ho! Christmas, indeed. One of my teeny-tiny, tendonitis inducing frets has been popping a new child or spouse and manually unchecking Ind/Fam and checking the Bir/Mar/Dea boxes. This will add a few months to the life of my right elbow. Love it.

      On Topic: Like most of you, I'm event driven with my sources, but in the case where I was told that so-and-so was a child of such-and-such family, and I had no further BMDB information, I used the level 1 source. Since I'd now like to identify those individuals to clean them up, how could I construct a query to find all individuals with a level 1 source?

       
      • Greg Roach

        Greg Roach - 2009-01-08

        Not particularly pretty or user-friendly, but you could use the search/replace feature of the batch update to search for "1 SOUR".  Don't actually replace anything, just click "next" to search through them all, and click on the name/link to open the page in a new tab/window.

         
    • Wes Groleau

      Wes Groleau - 2009-01-08

      I don't have access from here to my DB, but I was imagining an admin-only script that can do certain predetermined SQL selects.

      This one would be

      Select xref, ..... from <table or join> where <something> not like '%1 SOUR @%@' and <something> not like '%2 SOUR @%@'

      I might even try to create that this weekend.

       
    • macalter

      macalter - 2009-01-09

      ... but you could use the search/replace feature of the batch update to search for "1 SOUR".

      USE GENERAL SEARCH!!! If you use S/R and don't fill in Replace, all 1 SOUR will be wiped! I tried with sample Find where I knew 100% occurred in 2 places. Left Replace empty. All gone.

      Used General Search 1 SOUR and got tons of the records listed.

      kiwi/fish: I was about 5% through my adding/modifying data but went back to the start and am redoing SOURs. More work but in the end the differences are obvioius :) I can instally see why a person has been added witha guesstamite DOB or DOD w/o clicking the SOURCE tab. Where I know nothing more than the person's existance, I applied it to a "null" DOB (the Y disappears leaving the field appearing empty but with a SOUR. Haven't done check to see if it's valid????? (Critical that is)

       
      • Wes Groleau

        Wes Groleau - 2009-01-09

        Unless there's a recent bug, filling in search displays the next matching record.  It does not do the replace.

        You have buttons which can do the replace OR skip and show the next match.

         
        • macalter

          macalter - 2009-01-10

          My 4.1.5 Search and Replace does just that. If I want to Search only, I need to use General search. And, I can't "go next", I can only retrieve a lst of the results and do the clicking one-by-one.

          I tessted by entering Search: <FIRST NAME ENTRY> and Replace: <LEFT EMPTY>.

          In results displayed, the 2 records with the first name were modified to only their last name!

           
    • Anonymous

      Anonymous - 2009-01-09

      Mac

      <<the Y disappears leaving the field appearing empty >> You won't have any problems with gedcheck. However, having Y when there's no date (especially;y for MARR and DEAT) speeds up the very complex privacy checks by age enormously.

       
      • macalter

        macalter - 2009-01-10

        kiwi:
        I'm NOT removing the "Y" when adding the SOUR. I want it there for appearance when date isn't known as the record "looks funny" with just the modification tag info and no other details :) But, when I add the SOUR, it seems to remove the "Yes". This has happened for all SOURs I added when only 1 BIRT Y exists for the birth date tag.

        No prblems where a date is entered.

        If this is important for privacy (not problem for me right now) then maybe check your newer versions and see if it happens. I'm okay with it happening in 4.1.5.

         

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