SNGF: Genealogy Database Statistics

 

Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is:

1)  If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today.

 

Family Tree Maker

I use Family Tree Maker 2012 (FTM) for my genealogy research. I went to Plan > Current Tree > More to find my file statistics.

 

 

This shows me that in my database I have:

• 5,096 people
• 1,374 marriages
• 14 generations
• 1,015 surnames
• 1,911 places
• 63 sources
• 425 media

• average lifespan 57.3 years
• earliest birth date before 1555
• most recent birth date 11 March 2011

My daughter is due to have her first baby two weeks today, so that last statistic will soon change.

 

The Next Generation

I use The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (TNG) to publish my family history online. TNG also produces database statistics. These are slightly different from FTM because I haven't synced the two programs for a couple of days.

 

 

The TNG statistics provide me with the additional information that in my database I have:

• 2,576 males (50.57%)
• 2,499 females (49.06%)
• 19 unknown gender (0.37%)
• total living 582
• total families 1,536
• average lifespan 60 years 88 days
• longest lived person 106 years

The large discrepancy in the average lifespan between FTM and TNG is surprising and I must investigate that further.

SNGF - "Problems" in your genealogy database

The Challenge

Tonight's challenge from Randy Seaver is to:

1. Open your genealogy software program and use the Help function to determine how to make a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" (or something similar).
2. Create a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" in your software for the persons in your tree (either everyone in the tree, or for a selected number of generations of your ancestors).
3. Tell us what type of problems or errors your report found.  Tell us how many errors were found.  Tell us what problem or error surprised you.

The Results

1. I use Family Tree Maker 2011. I already know how to create a Data Errors Report in that program. Go to the Publish workspace and select Person Reports > Data Errors Report.
2. I ran a Data Errors Report for All Individuals. I opted to include all errors except "Birth date missing" and "Marriage date missing". I don't regard those as data errors but as research challenges.
3. My Data Errors Report included nine individuals:
   • Two men were flagged: "The name may include a title" because their first name is Dean. These are not data errors.
   • Three women were flagged: "The individual has the same last name as her husband". In all three cases the women's maiden surnames were indeed the same as their husbands' surnames. These are not data errors.
   • A husband and wife were both flagged: "This individual's children's sort order may be incorrect". I checked this couple's children in the People workspace, Family view. They were indeed in the wrong sort order, with births in 1892 and 1897 followed by a birth in 1894. I clicked the button to "Sort children by birth order" and the error was corrected.
   • One person was flagged: "The birth date occurs after the death date". This is a known problem in my tree. Family Search shows Steven Martin, son of Alexander Martin and Love Kingston, as having been baptised at Doulting, Somerset on 18 April 1787 but buried there on 29 March 1787. Until I am able to look at the original registers, I am keeping these contradictory dates in my tree, as I do not know which one is incorrect.
   • One person was flagged: "Baptism date occurred before individual's birth date. The birth date occurred after her father was 80. The birth date occurred more than one year after her father died". This was the result of a data entry error on my part. I had entered an 1827 birth as having occurred in 1847. Correcting the birth date resolved the error.

I run this report regularly, so wasn't expecting - and didn't find - any major issues. Nonetheless, I did pick up, and was able to correct, two errors in my data. So thank you for the challenge, Randy.

FTM 2011 + 6 months Ancestry sub for £19

Calling all genealogists who have a Tesco Clubcard. You can currently get the Platinum version of Family Tree Maker 2011 for £19 worth of Clubcard vouchers. The software includes a free 6 month Premium subscription to Ancestry, worth £77.70.

This is a very good deal, as the same package is currently £61.27 on Ancestry and £35.99 on Amazon.

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Surnames?

Tonight's challenge from Randy Seaver is to:

1)  Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to count how many surnames you have in your family tree database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

3)  Tell us how many surnames, and if possible, which surname has the most entries.  If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5!

4)  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a status or comment on Facebook.

My preferred genealogy program is Family Tree Maker 2011 (FTM 2011). I used the Surname Report, found in the Publish workspace under Person Reports.

 

 

The Surname Report is a new feature in FTM 2011 and I had never used it before tonight, so I found this week's challenge particularly interesting.

From the Surname Report Options, I selected the options:

• All Individuals
• Sort by surname count
• Show divider between surnames

 

 

 

This report gave me 27 pages containing 35 surnames, plus a 28th page containing 24. (35 X 27) + 24 = 969, so I have a total of 969 surnames in my database of 4,859 people.

The most common surname in my database is my maiden name, Bentley. The table below shows the top ten surnames, including the breakdown between males and females and the earliest and most recent dates for each surname:

 

Fearless Females: Timeline for Charlotte Aves

In honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has created  Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

March 23 — Create a timeline for a female ancestor using your favourite software program.

This timeline for my great great grandmother was created using Family Tree Maker 2011. 

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - The Date I Was Born

Another Saturday night, another fun challenge from Randy Seaver:

1) What day of the week were you born? Tell us how you found out.

I was born on a Tuesday. My Mum told me that when I was very small. She used to quote from the old rhyme, "Tuesday's child is full of grace". Just to make sure I hadn't got it wrong, I checked my birthdate in the calendar in The Master Genealogist (TMG). It agrees that I was born on a Tuesday.

 

 

2) What has happened in recorded history on your birth date (day and month)? Tell us how you found out, and list five events.

I Googled "on this day 6 July" which produced 393 million results. Forced to choose only five events, I decided on:

• 6 July 1189: Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) became King of England, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, on the death of his father, Henry II. I saw Richard's beautifully decorated tomb when I visited the Abbey of Fontevraud in France in 2008. (Source: Wikipedia)

• July 1535: Sir Thomas More was executed for treason, having refused to take the Oath of Supremacy, acknowledging Henry VIII as Supreme Governor of the Church in England. On the scaffold he declared that he died, "The King's good servant, but God's first". (Source: Wikipedia)

• 6 July 1785: The United States Congress unanimously: "Resolved, That the money unit of the United States be one dollar.” (Source: The Freeman)

• 6 July 1942: Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the "Secret Annexe", a sealed-off area above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse. The day before, Anne's older sister, Margot, had received a call-up notice to be deported to a Nazi "work camp." Anne was 13 when they went into hiding. (Source: History Channel & Wikipedia)

• 6 July 1964: The Beatles' first film, "A Hard Day's Night," premiered in London. Perhaps they chose the day because it was exactly seven years after John Lennon and Paul McCartney were first introduced to each other, on 6 July 1957. (Source: On This Day).

 

3)  What famous people have been born on your birth date?  Tell us how you found out, and list five of them.

As for (2) above, I Googled "on this day 6 July" and found:

• 6 July 1747: John Paul Jones, American naval commander. On 23 April 1778, Jones attacked the port of Whitehaven in Cumberland. Today there is a pub named after him in the town, which I visited in 2009. (Source: Wikipedia).

• 6 July 1781: Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. I lived in Singapore from 1965 to 1968. (Source: Wikipedia).

• 6 July 1939: Jet Harris, bassist with Cliff Richard's backing group, The Shadows. As a child I had a huge crush on Jet and his quiff! (Source: Jet Harris)

• 6 July 1946: George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States - and Sylvester Stallone on the same day. (Source: Wikipedia)

• 6 July 1907: Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter. I love her naive, folk art style paintings. (Source: Frida Kahlo).

Scanning Saturday - My new Flip-Pal

Yesterday I received my new Flip-Pal scanner, thanks to the kindness of a friend in the United States. For those who haven't yet come across this gadget, it is a small, portable, battery operated scanner that can be used to scan a wide variety of objects.

Small photos and documents can be placed inside the scanner in the usual way. With the lid removed and the scanner "flipped", it can also scan photographs whilst still in their albums, pictures in their frames, fabrics, wallpaper and three dimensional objects such as medals, coins and jewellery. There is even this You Tube video of someone scanning a bottle of water by rolling it under the Flip-Pal:

For any object larger than the Flip-Pal's 10.25″ x 6.5″ dimensions, the scanner comes with software which will stitch together a large image from a series of smaller, overlapping scans. This is ideal for scanning old maps or deeds which are larger than the traditional flat bed scanner.

I have been experimenting with the scanner for the past 24 hours and thought I would share some of the results with you.

This is a tiny photograph, measuring 2¼ by 3¼ inches, given to me by my mother. On the back she noted that they were on holiday in her father's taxi, in the late 1920s:

The scan quality was so good that I was able to enlarge  a section of the picture to see the number plate of the taxi and the people inside - my grandfather behind the wheel, wearing a driving helmet, with my mother in a straw hat beside him and my grandmother in the back:

I used a picture of my grandmother which is larger than the scanner to test the photo stitching software. I scanned it in six overlapping sections, which I cropped to eliminate all traces of the background on which the photo was lying:

I then used the stitching software which comes with the scanner to put the photograph back together. I think you'll agree that the result is amazing:

Finally, I used a free photo editing program, PhotoScape, to trim the jagged edges and auto level the colours. The resulting photograph looks as good as the day it was taken:

For my last experiment, I tested the Flip-Pal colour restoration software on the most faded picture in my album. This is an even smaller photograph - only 1¾ by 2¾ - and has lost so much colour that it is almost impossible to make out the subject with the naked eye. I was delighted that the initial scan enabled me to see quite a lot of the detail:

Then I used the automatic colour restoration program which comes with the scanner. The result was so much clearer that I immediately recognised the location - St James' Park, London - from the government buildings behind the line of trees in the background:

The last step was to apply auto level and noise reduction in PhotoScape:

I think the picture is of my grandmother with my mother on her knee and must have been taken in the spring of 1921. I shall ask my mother when she comes to lunch tomorrow!

Follow Friday: Audrey and Annie

My favourite reading over the past week has been "The Family Recorder", written by Audrey Collins of The National Archives (TNA):

• Saturday: a post about old houses in Fetter Lane. Fascinating for me because my 2x great grandfather, Julius William Fritz, lived in Fetter Lane from 1865 to 1887.
• Sunday: an excellent piece examining the new Family Search website from the point of view of British researchers.
• Monday: a beautifully drawn map of an enumerator's route, found amongst  the 1861 census returns for Marylebone - to which a 20th century hand has added a stick figure saying "oh!" Since the stick figure is on the site of Lord's cricket ground, he really should be saying "howzat!".
• Tuesday: an introduction to Wordle.net, which generates amazing pictures from the most frequently used words in your blog.

Two weeks ago, Annie Barnes of www.hibbitt.org.uk left a comment on my post about Rev Frederick Davis. Last night I finally found time to check out her website - and what a treat it is. It has to be one of the best designed family history sites I've seen. I was so impressed that I searched the site to see what software she used - and so came across her Follow Friday post last week about GED-GEN.

GED-GEN is a program which creates family group sheets for your website from a GEDCOM file and is sophisticated enough to offer all sorts of customisations. I was so taken with Annie's site that I downloaded the free trial and, after a couple of hours playing with it, I bought the registered version. At only $20 I thought it a bargain. When registering my purchase I mentioned some trouble I was having with the non-standard GEDCOM file produced by Family Tree Maker 2011 and received an instant, helpful response from Mike Voisin of GED-GEN. I sent him my GEDCOM and he again responded very quickly and positively today. I am seriously impressed with both the program and the customer service. Thank you so much for the introduction, Annie.