Idenifying twins with FTM

[Claude]

Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.

[Paul Blair]

Claude wrote:

Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.

FTM doesn't know about multiple births.

Select a person, click Edit. Select Add Fact.

In Type, put Twin, tab down to Place or Description and Type Y (or
anything you like, in fact). Dates don't matter.

Select OK, and now you can tag individuals as a twin. FTM doesn't check
anything, so if you have 3 1/2 sets of twins, it wont see an error.

To get a list (after you've tagged all the twins) just Select Twin where
the condition is Y.

Sadly, there is no way to set up to search for identical birth dates and
tick the box for you.

Paul

[Peter J Seymour]

Paul Blair wrote:

Claude wrote:

Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.


FTM doesn't know about multiple births.

Select a person, click Edit. Select Add Fact.

In Type, put Twin, tab down to Place or Description and Type Y (or
anything you like, in fact). Dates don't matter.

....

Sadly, there is no way to set up to search for identical birth dates and
tick the box for you.

Paul

Presumably, the lack of an automatic process for identifying twins is

down to the uncertainty in the question. Obviously, twins don't have to
be born on the same day, they could for example be born either side of
midnight. But there may be more to it - could twins be born more than 24
hours apart, if so how far apart? Does anyone know? Would it be good
enough to look for multiple births from the same parents within a given
timespan, say a month? Then you have to deal with incorrectly entered
data resulting in false twin flagging. Also, you have to cancel the
flags if dates are changed, persons moved to different parents etc.
It's not impossible, but the process gets a bit complicated.
Regards
Peter

[Claude]

"Peter J Seymour" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Presumably, the lack of an automatic process for identifying twins is down
to the uncertainty in the question. Obviously, twins don't have to be born
on the same day, they could for example be born either side of midnight.
But there may be more to it - could twins be born more than 24 hours
apart, if so how far apart? Does anyone know? Would it be good enough to
look for multiple births from the same parents within a given timespan,
say a month? Then you have to deal with incorrectly entered data resulting
in false twin flagging. Also, you have to cancel the flags if dates are
changed, persons moved to different parents etc.
It's not impossible, but the process gets a bit complicated.
Regards
Peter

I'd say it would be quite easy to do if the programmers wanted to
incorporate such functionality in the program. Yes, a simple search based
on births from the same parent within a specified period, say one month,
would be adequate. If you could vary the period, all the better. The issue
of incorrectly flagged data is of course something you have to deal with
with any operation you perform so I don't think that's really a problem
specific to identifying multiple births. Now I'm wondering if there is any
program that enables easy identification of multiple births?

[Hugh Watkins]

Claude wrote:

Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.

F2 >> index of individuals

click on "birth date " list will be sorted by date

FTM 2006


Hugh W

[Paul Blair]

Hugh Watkins wrote:

Claude wrote:
Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.


F2 >> index of individuals

click on "birth date " list will be sorted by date

FTM 2006


Hugh W

Amazing, isn't it? Here we are in the computer age, we can Google for
topics in microseconds, but to find twins in a list, we have to eyeball
it! No offence, Hugh, but its a pretty chancy way of doing things...

Paul

[Hugh Watkins]

Paul Blair wrote:

Hugh Watkins wrote:

Claude wrote:

Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.


F2 >> index of individuals

click on "birth date " list will be sorted by date

FTM 2006


Hugh W


Amazing, isn't it? Here we are in the computer age, we can Google for
topics in microseconds, but to find twins in a list, we have to eyeball
it! No offence, Hugh, but its a pretty chancy way of doing things...

good genealogists always eyeball stuff

especially archives 99.99% of which are not on line or even fully
catalogued

Hugh W

[Paul Blair]

Claude wrote:

"Peter J Seymour" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Presumably, the lack of an automatic process for identifying twins is down
to the uncertainty in the question. Obviously, twins don't have to be born
on the same day, they could for example be born either side of midnight.
But there may be more to it - could twins be born more than 24 hours
apart, if so how far apart? Does anyone know? Would it be good enough to
look for multiple births from the same parents within a given timespan,
say a month? Then you have to deal with incorrectly entered data resulting
in false twin flagging. Also, you have to cancel the flags if dates are
changed, persons moved to different parents etc.
It's not impossible, but the process gets a bit complicated.
Regards
Peter

I'd say it would be quite easy to do if the programmers wanted to
incorporate such functionality in the program. Yes, a simple search based
on births from the same parent within a specified period, say one month,
would be adequate. If you could vary the period, all the better. The issue
of incorrectly flagged data is of course something you have to deal with
with any operation you perform so I don't think that's really a problem
specific to identifying multiple births. Now I'm wondering if there is any
program that enables easy identification of multiple births?


Do you have a copy of MS Access?

If not, read no further.

If you do, get a free copy of Legacy, make a GEDCOM from FTM and import
the data into Legacy.

The file will end up in somewhere like c:\legacy\data, with an .fdb
extension. So right click on that file, and open it in Access.

Go to Tables, find tblIR (individual records). Make a query to check 2
fields - birthSD and surname - for common duplicates.

You will have to steer around empty birth dates (stored as -99999999)
and partial dates - eg, entering 2003 will be stored as 20030701, the
1st of July. But it is an easy way to get very close to a shortened list...

Paul

[Claude]

"Paul Blair" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Do you have a copy of MS Access?

Thanks. I do have a copy of Access so I'll give it a go.

[Peter J Seymour]

Claude wrote:

"Peter J Seymour" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...


Presumably, the lack of an automatic process for identifying twins is down
to the uncertainty in the question. Obviously, twins don't have to be born
on the same day, they could for example be born either side of midnight.
But there may be more to it - could twins be born more than 24 hours
apart, if so how far apart? Does anyone know? Would it be good enough to
look for multiple births from the same parents within a given timespan,
say a month? Then you have to deal with incorrectly entered data resulting
in false twin flagging. Also, you have to cancel the flags if dates are
changed, persons moved to different parents etc.
It's not impossible, but the process gets a bit complicated.
Regards
Peter


I'd say it would be quite easy to do if the programmers wanted to
incorporate such functionality in the program. Yes, a simple search based
on births from the same parent within a specified period, say one month,
would be adequate. If you could vary the period, all the better. The issue
of incorrectly flagged data is of course something you have to deal with
with any operation you perform so I don't think that's really a problem
specific to identifying multiple births. Now I'm wondering if there is any
program that enables easy identification of multiple births?


Other posters have suggested partial solutions and I also agree with the

later comment that in the end one probably needs to eye-ball the data.
However, regarding a definitive solution, I will see what I can produce,
although it won't be in the Beta 2 release of Gendatam Suite which is
imminent.
Regards
Peter
http://www.gendatam.com

[Paul Blair]

Claude wrote:

"Paul Blair" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Do you have a copy of MS Access?


Thanks. I do have a copy of Access so I'll give it a go.

The SQL statement looks like this:

SELECT tblIR.Surname, tblIR.GivenName, tblIR.BirthSD
FROM tblIR
WHERE (((tblIR.Surname) In (SELECT [Surname] FROM [tblIR] As Tmp GROUP
BY [Surname],[BirthSD] HAVING Count(*)>1 And [BirthSD] =
[tblIR].[BirthSD])) AND ((tblIR.BirthSD)<>-99999999) AND
((Right([birthsd],4))<>"0701"))
ORDER BY tblIR.Surname, tblIR.BirthSD;

Then check for day+1 and day-1, in case births straddle midnight.

Paul

[Charlie Hoffpauir]

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:21:24 GMT, "Claude" <[email protected]>
wrote:

Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.

Actually, I'm not using FTM any more, but back when I was, I always
kept a "copy" of the database in Access, just for checking things like
this. You can create the Access database by generating a custom report
in FTM containing all the fields that you care to use (whatever you
think might be useful, like names, spouse, b.d., d.d. m.d. etc). Then
copy the report to Excel, and import the Excel table into Access.

Once in Access, it's pretty easy to generate a query that will give
you exactly what you're looking for, in fact, Paul has already posted
how to do that using the table from Legacy. I tried the Legacy route
as well, but found the custom report to Access much more convenient.
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/
Message board:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=b ... .hoffpauir
Mail list:
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname ... pauir.html
DNA project:
<http://www.familytreedna.com/(153dme45ewxtrs45rzxk5z2x)/public/Hoffpauir/index.aspx>
--
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[Paul Blair]

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:21:24 GMT, "Claude" <[email protected]
wrote:

Can anyone advise an efficient way to identify twins (or any multiple
births) when using FTM2006 please? My database is too large to even
contemplate trawling through it 'line by line'.


Actually, I'm not using FTM any more, but back when I was, I always
kept a "copy" of the database in Access, just for checking things like
this. You can create the Access database by generating a custom report
in FTM containing all the fields that you care to use (whatever you
think might be useful, like names, spouse, b.d., d.d. m.d. etc). Then
copy the report to Excel, and import the Excel table into Access.
snip

Amazing comment there, CH. There was a time, a few years ago now, where
Excel was my weapon of choice for reprocessing data from Application A
to Application B. It was remarkably friendly to most everything I used,
and was like a kindly uncle in that it had no nasty tricks to ruin your
day. I always thought of it as a non-Microsoft product, because it was
so useful

Paul

[Charlie Hoffpauir]

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 15:17:52 +1000, Paul Blair <[email protected]>
wrote:

Amazing comment there, CH. There was a time, a few years ago now, where
Excel was my weapon of choice for reprocessing data from Application A
to Application B. It was remarkably friendly to most everything I used,
and was like a kindly uncle in that it had no nasty tricks to ruin your
day. I always thought of it as a non-Microsoft product, because it was
so useful

Paul

LOL. Well, maybe you can still remember when Excel first came out? It
was when Lotus 123 dominated but Quattro Pro gave a better interface
and DOS still ruled. Well, Excel was a laugher. But Micro$oft never
gave up on it, and now you don't hear anything about 123, and very
little about Quattro Pro. And Excel is really, really good! (Gates
must have hired some programmers away from Borland)
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/
Message board:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=b ... .hoffpauir
Mail list:
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname ... pauir.html
DNA project:
<http://www.familytreedna.com/(153dme45ewxtrs45rzxk5z2x)/public/Hoffpauir/index.aspx>
--
NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth

[Paul Blair]

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 15:17:52 +1000, Paul Blair <[email protected]
wrote:


Amazing comment there, CH. There was a time, a few years ago now, where
Excel was my weapon of choice for reprocessing data from Application A
to Application B. It was remarkably friendly to most everything I used,
and was like a kindly uncle in that it had no nasty tricks to ruin your
day. I always thought of it as a non-Microsoft product, because it was
so useful

Paul

LOL. Well, maybe you can still remember when Excel first came out? It
was when Lotus 123 dominated but Quattro Pro gave a better interface
and DOS still ruled. Well, Excel was a laugher. But Micro$oft never
gave up on it, and now you don't hear anything about 123, and very
little about Quattro Pro. And Excel is really, really good! (Gates
must have hired some programmers away from Borland)
Charlie Hoffpauir

Someone once told me that Excel programmers live(d) in Chicago, well
away from the Empire in Seattle, and they were a pretty independent
bunch. Truth? Urban myth? But I never *used* spreadsheets as
spreadsheets, never had the use!

Paul