Duplicates, asterisks, data sets appobjectshow errors

[edwinhardee 0]

A site search for "deleting duplicates" only results in three posts. I have three books on TMG, the master genealogist users guide (for version 5), geting the most out of TMG, and a pdf (I cant find at the minute). If I am searching for the wrong terms, or there are chapters, pages etc you could direct me too, that's appreciated as well

 

I've had TMG for well over ten years probably closer to 15 (now version 7), however I have never quite gotten the grasp of it. I have added and added dta sets through the years, lost some, etc. I am moving to a family farm soon and (ironically) will have access to genealogy groups, etc. for the first time in years (my current county has about 3 people per square mile and the counties nearby arent much more populated) so hopefully my research will pick up then.

 

I just got TMG set up on my desktop and laptop and am experiencing the following. If anyone has any advice on these duplicates please advise. I met a relative online in Florida that is making alot of progress on my line and I am trying to clean up my file before converting it to gedcom for him. I would really appreciate it if someone that understood what was happening would break up the below lines and give me a quick explanation of each

 

When I search for myself, I get two responses for me. In the drop down list above this result list it says search all data sets.

However, both entries for myself have the same ID number. what does this mean? Apparently I have two entries in the same data set?

 

The above mentioned drop down list gives me 3 options: all data sets, all unlocked data sets, and one named data set, "1: (Surname)2003imported on29oct2003" (I have since (2008) married and have two sons, and my wife and sons are also associated to my name in the results. and I have backed them up several times)

 

how can I tell the name of the data set associated with an individual? One of the results for me has an asterisk, the other doesn't. My parents associated with the entries for me also have the same ID numbers (in both trees my father is 3653 and my mother is 4290. My father and I have the same name, (I am a jr) so the search for my name name shows his just below. He also has two entries below mine. Except he has two different IDs listed. One is the above 3653, the other is 8175.Both of them are asterisked as primary. When I follow each of them, they both have me listed as son.

 

When I search for Southey (surname), I get two results, both asterisked as primary, and with different IDs (3175 and 8245). 3715 doesnt have a father, 8245 does (William). (William is the first of my american line I believe, he's the first in my files at any rate)

 

When I follow Williams descendants down three generations, (southey, jessie, charles everett) I have no duplicates until charles everett. He had ten children. On his family page, on the person view, it shows a duplicate for Robert Edwin (my great grandfather). Both are the same ID number (626).However the children pane shows 11 children, doesnt duplicate Robert Edwin, but does duplicate Jessie Arthur, one entry giving him the ID 3639, and the other entry doesnt even have an ID.

 

this is just an example of what i am facing. one more thing. Everytime I start up TMG, I have to click through about a dozen error windows (ignoring them). Then it starts and appears to be fine. here are the following errors

 

the first error is exhibits folder not found. do I want to use the default exhibit folder. I have to answer no then click ignore through the following files not being found

59 appobjectshow

61, 62 , 64, 65 ,67, 68, 69, 72, 75, 77, 78, 79

all appobjectshow

 

Sorry if this should be more than one thread, once I got going I couldnt stop

[Terry Reigel 0]

Let's start with the apparent duplicates.

 

The lists of people (Picklist and Project Explorer) are actually lists of names. If you find yourself twice with the same ID number, then that means you have two names entered. The one marked with the asterisk is the Primary name - it will appear at the top of the Details view of that person. The others are alternate names - they appear in the list of Tag in the main window of the Details view. Commonly they would be spelling variations, nicknames, married names, etc. If in fact they are exactly the same you would probably want to delete one of them (check for citations in each before deleting one, and copy any citations you want to keep to the name tag you will keep).

 

Duplicate names can easily occur if you have merged two people who you have found to be the same person, which can occur when you merge data sets.

 

If you have multiple data sets, then you will see a prefix number - 1, 2, 3, etc. - in front of the ID#. That prefix identifies the data set in which the person is contained. If the names in fact have the same ID#, including the prefix digit, then they are in the same data set.

 

I'm not sure this answers all your questions, but maybe will provide a start. Ask again what you didn't get answered.

[Robert Jacobs 0]

Dear Edwin,

 

I can't speak to all the problems you discuss, but here are a few suggestions:

 

1. If the "duplicate" entires show the same ID number, they are the same person, probably with at least two different versions of the name. The asterisk shows which is primary and will show up as the default in reports. This is normal; indeed, it is a feature of TMG which allows you to accomodate changing names, for example for immigrants.

 

2. If you have true duplicates, then you can merge them: tools/merge two people I don't know offhand whether they have to be in the same dataset or not, but a careful review of the help files will inform you. The merge process allows you to decide what to keep from each version of the entries.

 

Good luck with the clean-up -- and welcome back to genealogy.

 

 

Robert

 

Ooops! I see Terry beat me to it, and with a much clearer exposition at that.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Robert Jacobs

[edwinhardee 0]

thanks for your answers. one question for the time being - the last time I checked (years ago) there were no batch deletion process in TMG. Each one had to be done individually (or each merged by one pair at a time - I don't remember how I did it now).

 

And I thought I had asked on this website too on merging and got a real good detailed answer - but I can't find it now. I wonder if there was a crash here several years ago or some type of information loss

[edwinhardee 0]

any ideas on the missing appobjectshow files? or what they even do" am I the only one that has to ignore through a bunch of windows every time I start TMG?

[Robert Jacobs 0]

If you can get the program up cleanly, run File/Maintenance/Verify File Integrity followed by File/Maintenance/Optimize. That might take care of some of those errors. The VFI process will write a log file (I don't recollect precisely where it is to be found) which may help top identify file errors. Another thing to check is whether the files are all in the correct locations -- the locations should be consistent with the directories shown in Files/Preferences/Advanced.

 

If there are still problems I'd try to reinstall the program (that won't damage your data) to see if that helps.

 

Robert

Edited January 22, 2012 by Robert Jacobs

[edwinhardee 0]

thanks i did both. after I ran the file integrity, I rec'd a suggestion box to run initialize duplicates so I did that too. then I ran a duplicate check for matching soundex given and surnames with matching sounex parents I have 452 candidates. that isnt too bad. I am surprised there isnt a way to automatically delete batches of dupes. I will call customer support tomorow

Edited January 22, 2012 by edwinhardee