Validator tool

Introduction

The Validator is used to document the bi-directional relationships in the records of People class to:

• help determine the appropriate values for Gender, Mother, Father, Other mothers, Other fathers and Spouses/Partners fields.
• check and advise of issues that exist in the relationships of the records.

There are two evaluation modes:

• Full evaluation: this is a comprehensive bi-directional scan of the records and relationships in the People profile. It takes a few moments to complete and provides the most up-to-date notes on found issues. You can run a full evaluation by going to the ‘Evaluate’ menu item in the Actions ‘cog’ button on the Validator page.
• Modified only evaluation: the system will automatically detect changes to People profile records and will evaluate these changes within the content of the modified record. This evaluation process does not update records that reference the modified record; this only occurs when a full evaluation is run.

The full evaluation process is time consuming and disrupting to your workflow, therefore the system will perform a modified only evaluation if there are less than 25 changes to People records found; more than 25 and the system forces a full evaluation to occur.

Also be aware that other users may run or trigger a full evaluation while you are using the Validator tools. In this situation, you will be directed to the Evaluate page while the process is running.

Your User account must have Administration access, Add records, Edit records and Access Validator permissions enabled to use the Validator tool.

If the hyperlinks, pages and resources for the Validator tool are not available on the archive, try logging in with an account with higher administrative privileges or as a Super Administrator.

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Legacy People class fields

Prior to the introduction of the Genealogy component, in June 2019, the People class had several additional fields to record genealogy information about each person. These fields became redundant or were replaced once the Genealogy component was integrated into the software.

The following fields have been changed or removed with the introduction of the Genealogy component:

• Other mothers was added.
• Other fathers was added.
• Mother’s mother was removed.
• Mother’s father was removed.
• Father’s mother was removed.
• Father’s father was removed.
• Children was replaced with dynamic field.
• Siblings was replaced with hybrid field.
• Spouses/Partners was modified to include a type.

In older archives these fields may continue to exist. The Validator will continue to evaluate these fields until they are removed; hence why this document refers to these legacy fields. However, administrators should continue to work towards transferring the family relationships conveyed in these legacy fields to the new fields used by the Genealogy component.    

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Evaluation processes

The evaluation processes use relationship logic and gender roles to determine suggested values for Gender, Mother and Father fields for records where this information has not been supplied.

All suggested values are documented in the Notes column within the Validator page.

Male evaluation
An ungendered person (person where the gender has not been specified) is evaluated as male, if:

• the person is referenced as a father, other father, mother’s father or father’s father of another person.
• the person is referenced as the spouse/partner of a female person.

Female evaluation
An ungendered person is evaluated as female, if:

• the person is referenced as a mother, other mother, mother’s mother or father’s mother of another person.
• the person is referenced as the spouse/partner of a male person.

Ungendered evaluation
An ungendered person is evaluated as ungendered, if:

• the person is evaluated as both male and female in the above gender evaluation processes.
• no references, so a gender cannot be inferred.

Mother evaluation
Where a mother reference is not specified, evaluate a person’s mother if:

• the person is listed as a child of a female person.
• the person’s father has spouses and there is commonality in the name of the person and spouse.
• the person has siblings with a mother reference specified and there is commonality in the name of the person and sibling’s mother.
• the person is female and has been referenced as the mother of a record that has the mother’s mother reference set.
• the person is male and has been referenced as the father of a record that has the father’s mother reference set.

Father evaluation
Where a father reference is not specified, evaluate a person’s father if:

• the person is listed as a child of a male person.
• the person’s mother has spouses and there is a commonality in the name of the person and the spouse.
• the person has siblings with a father reference specified and there is commonality in the name of the person and the sibling’s father.
• the person is female and has been referenced as the mother of a record that has the mother’s father reference set.
• the person is male and has been referenced as the father of a record that has the father’s father reference set.

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Verification processes

The verification process examines relationship logic and gender roles to identify inconsistencies in existing Gender, Mother, Other Mothers, Father, Other Fathers, Children, Sibling and Spouse/Partner attribute values.

All identified inconsistencies are documented in the Notes column within theValidator page.

Parental checks
Where a mother or father reference has been set, warn if:

• the person is listed as a child of another female person, other than the mother.
• the person is listed as a child of another male person, other than the father.

Gender checks
If a person has a gender set, warn if:

• a male person is referenced as a mother, other mothers, mother’s mother or father’s mother of another person.
• a female person is referenced as a father, other fathers, mother’s father or father’s father of another person.
• a male person is referenced as a spouse/partner of another male person.
• a female person is referenced as a spouse/partner of another female record.

Circular reference checks
A person that references itself is said to have circular reference. Warn of circular references if:

• the person is the Mother (or evaluated Mother) of their own record.
• the person is the Father (or evaluated Father) of their own record.
• the person is an Other Mother of their own record.
• the person is an Other Father of their own record.
• the person is the Mother’s Mother of their own record.
• the person is the Mother’s Father of their own record.
• the person is the Father’s Mother of their own record.
• the person is the Father’s Father of their own record.
• the person is a Spouse/Partner of their own record.
• the person is a Child of their own record.
• the person is a Sibling of their own record.

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Interpreting the Validator layout and metadata

Every person record will be listed in the Validator, regardless of the genealogy information available for the person. For large archives this can lead to tens of thousands of entries in the Validator.

The search, ordering and filter controls, at the top of the Validator page, can help reduce the number of entries on view in the following ways:

• Name keyword: search for people by keyword; for example, locating a family group by surname.
• Order by: order the list by ‘Full name’ or ‘Last word’. The last word is often the person’s surname.
• Mother: filter the list to show records where the person’s Mother field has an assigned value or an empty value.
• Father: filter the list to show records where the person’s Father field has an assigned value or an empty value.
• Gender: filter the list to show records where the person’s Gender field has an assigned value or an empty value.
• Notes: filter the list to show records that have Notes assigned or don’t have Notes assigned.
• Search results: filter the list to show records that have been found in the search results. This option is only shown when the search results contain People records.

When starting out, filtering to show only entries where notes have been documented is a good place to begin. These records are usually the ones that need the most attention.

Validator entries are laid out in a table with five important columns:

• ‘Eye’ icon: this shows any content restrictions, such as Sorrow, that are applied to the person record.
• Name:  The person’s name, any alternative names and other information helpful in determining the person’s identity.
• Actual values: show the current values assigned to the record for Gender, Mother, Father, Other mothers and Other fathers fields.
• Evaluated as: shows possible values for the person’s Gender, Mother and Father fields based on the evaluation process.
• Notes: shows the documented issues related to the person’s records that have been identified during the evaluation and verification. Notes often link to the person record where the issue was found or evaluated suggestions was identified.

Important: the ‘Evaluated as‘ values are based on the assessment of the metadata in related records. There are several assumptions made in the evaluation process that may not be true, and the accuracy of the metadata in related records may also be unproven.  Therefore, the evaluated values are suggestions only. You should always make your own assessment as to the validity of the evaluated values.

The Gender, Mother, Father, Other mothers, Other fathers, Living (Deceased) field of the People record class play an important role in building family tree charts. Therefore, it is important for archive administrators to provide as much information as possible in these fields. The Validator page has several options to quickly apply values to these fields – both in bulk and to individual records.

As more genealogical metadata is added to People records, and new records are created, re-running the evaluation process will find and document new Notes.

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Manually running an evaluation process.

1. Navigate to the Validator page, by going to: Main Menu → Administration tab → Validator hyperlink.
2. In the Actions button menu, select Evaluate.
3. The evaluation process will begin, and once finished, you will be returned to the Validator page.

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Applying values to records from within the Validator tool

The following tasks can all be performed on the Validator page; by navigating to: Main Menu → Administration tab → Validator hyperlink.

Bulk record processing actions requiring checkbox selection are available from the Validator page’s Actions button menu.

These actions include:

• Apply evaluated gender: applies the ‘Evaluated as’ Gender value to the selected records. If an evaluated gender is not set for a record, then the action is skipped for that record.
• Apply evaluated mother: applies the ‘Evaluated as’ Mother value to the selected records. If an evaluated mother is not set for a record, then the action is skipped for that record.
• Apply evaluated father: applies the ‘Evaluated as’ Father value to the selected records. If an evaluated father is not set for a record, then the action is skipped for that record.
• Apply all evaluated: applies the ‘Evaluated as’ Gender, Mother and/or Father values to the selected records. Only evaluated as values will be applied.
• Set male gender: applies the ‘Male’ value to the Gender fields of the selected records.
• Set female gender: applies the ‘Female’ value to the Gender fields of the selected records.
• Set deceased status: applies the ‘Deceased’ value to the Living fields of the selected records.
• Set living status: applies the ‘Living’ value to the Living fields of the selected records.

Single record actions are displayed as hyperlinks below the name of the person record in the ‘Name’ column. The visibility of the following actions is dependent on whether an evaluated value has been suggested or whether the record has a gender or living status already applied to the record:

• Male: sets the Gender field to ‘Male’.
• Female: sets the Gender field to ‘Female’.
• Living: sets the Living field to ‘Living’ status.
• Deceased: sets the Living field to ‘Deceased’ status.
• Gender: applied the ‘Evaluated as’ Gender value to the record’s Gender field.
• Mother: applied the ‘Evaluated as’ Mother value to the record’s Mother field.
• Father: applied the ‘Evaluated as’ Father value to the record’s Father field.
• All: applies the ‘Evaluated as’ found values to the record’s corresponding fields.

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Other tasks that can be performed in the Validator tool.

There are several other tasks that can be performed from the Validator page, these include:

• View a person’s full record: the names of people are hyperlinked to their corresponding record in the archive. Click the name of the person to view their record.
• View a person’s tree: click the View chart hyperlink beneath the name of the person to view the persons tree in the Chart Viewer. See The Chart Viewer and family trees for more information.
• Batch edit records: enable the checkboxes of two or more records you wish to edit, then select Batch Edit from the Actions button menu. See Batch editing records for more information.
• Merge records: enable the checkboxes of two or more records you wish to merge, then select Merge records from the Actions menu. See Merging records for more information.
• Search for references: click the Search for references hyperlink beneath the name of the person to search and display all references to the person’s record in the Search Results page.