analyze with spreadsheet
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I apologize for not saying more. I would like to understand how to analyze the search results from FS in a spreadsheet. I viewed a mention in one FS video that states people do it but I don't know how. It would be interesting to see some sort of write up or explanation.
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@JLetkeman JLetkeman
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Jack
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Ah, you have "Changed" your 'Contact Name'...
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'Yes', in some cases, like this, brevity is not always the best ... more is better.
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Here is where you "Export" the results of a "Records" search:
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"Search Results from Historical Records" page/screen ...
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Look towards the TOP 'right-hand-side'
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.I hope this helps.
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Brett
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what Brett shared works great with historical records.
what area of FamilySearch were you hoping to extract to Excel? anything besides Historical Records?
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Just the historical records to analyze them off line. I am curious why people use a spreadsheet vs database. I have my results in Excel and Access, but I am not very good at doing the analysis in either. To me as spreadsheet has been for numbers. So I am curious of the power of using it spreadsheets for analyzing the search results. I can always learn some new way.
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I know how to download the results but making use of it in spreadsheet style confuses me.
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Thats one reason I think many of us are not sure how to answer your question.
it very much depends what you are downloading and how you want to analyze it.
much family tree data is not very well represented in the "flat" format of a spreadsheet.
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I would say many people DONT analyze it in spreadsheet format.
the just analyze it in FamilySearch.
give us some examples of what you would be analyzing.
in many ways its just a way to keep a record of the results.
many people will just keep it as a data file - but not so much for serious inter-analysis
but some other people might do that - it just depends.
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many more people know EXCEL - than people who know "database tools" such as ACCESS etc.
that is why EXCEL is the preferred option.
but any database person can easily load any excel file into a database program.
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I was wondering about the reason people used excel, now I understand lack of knowledge on database. I thought I was missing some some new way to use Excel for analyzing the results of search on historical records. I think then it is better for me to stay with the database method and make queries and reports from that to see what I can find. Thank-you for your answer.
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so tell us . . .
what are some of the way you are analyzing the records?
and for what purpose.
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and again - for many people - it is simply a way to SAVE their search results
(not so much that they are then going to use complex analysis in EXCEL or ACCESS)
simply using it as a way to save their results.
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Sometimes, you might want to do some filtering that the normal search function in FS doesn't allow. Pulling the data into a spreadsheet allows you to do whatever you want.
The mechanism is handicapped some as well. You can only export a maximum of 100 hits at a time. Information about which hits are already linked to person records are not included (even though these are shown on the results page).
If you could easily download 30 or 40 thousand hits, then it might be useful for quickly finding some things (if you are real familiar with excel). But I have personally never found it useful.
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This way I can filter by spouse, child, place or any field I want. I have found it useful to me, by using a queries in Access and then I can search the results offline. I download 2 thousand but it takes time because you go next page after each download. I like Jeff's idea of downloading alot, but for me 30 thousand might be difficult and interesting. Thanks for all your input.
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I dont see any easy way to get beyond the 100 items per page
but even so - its a quick thing - the download - and you could, with a little work - create 100 downloads
and convert to csv and with a little know how - easily combine them into 1 csv file that you can upload into your tool of choice. 10,000 records
On the other hand - you can filter by spouse, child, location - right there in FS - without Excel or Access.
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