Jump to content
JuliaBalbilla

Problems using 'check for duplicate people'

Recommended Posts

Am tearing my hair out!! I imported some data from an old .sqz file into an existing project and copied it to my existing data set, deleting the data set that was imported. So far, so good. However, numerous people in the old file are duplicated in the current project, so I need to do a lot of merging.

 

I used the check for duplicate people facility but cannot get it to come up with what it should do. On the default setting, none of the people who should be merged show up. I have tried fiddling with different settings and the only way I can get the people to be merged to show up is to have no evaluation for given names and it comes up with over 16,000 possibilities from a data set of just over 3,000. It seems to have no regard for dates either, matching my 18 year old daughter with some ggg aunt from the 19th century and they don't even have the same initials. Most of the people to be merged have exact surnames in both sets of information, but don't show up when checking the exact surname or soundex boxes.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Thank you!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Just a guess, Julia, but I suggest finding one of the new/imported people in TMG and checking their primary Name tag. Your symptoms sound like cases I have seen before where the entire name "John Jones" was imported into a single TMG name field, e.g. all into the surname field, instead of John in the given field and Jones in the surname field.

 

If that is true you may be better off restoring to a backup from just before the merge (you did do one then, right?) and redo the GEDCOM import. There are options you might try as part of that import to help with names, depending upon how those names are stored in the GEDCOM file.

 

As for the date issue, I would look at the Birth tags and see whether their dates were imported as irregular dates.

 

Does really seem like an import issue to me.

 

Hope this gives you ideas to try,

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you for your reply Michael. The names and dates have imported perfectly but one thing I have noticed in the picklist is that the imported people don't have an asterisk by their names, denoting a primary tag, so I wonder if that is the problem? Do you know of any way in which I can make these primary?

 

I did a back up a few days ago, but didn't think to do one before I imported the file :-(.

 

JB

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes, not being primary will be a problem. Go to one of these people and see if they have two name tags, both a primary and non-primary? The primary will be up with the parents, and the non-primary down with the tags. If they do (also) have a primary, see what that primary name tag looks like and if you can find it in the picklist. All your new people's names may be similar and together in the picklist so it might make it somewhat easier to change them.

 

Maybe some other user will have an idea how to change them to primary. I haven't looked at the TMG Utility, but it might? be able to do something like this? Maybe the "change name parts" feature?

 

Hope this gives you further ideas,

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you again! Yes, I am now systematically going through the picklist. I don't know what TMG Utility is and cannot find it anywhere. I had TMG 4 before and haven't got used to V8 yet.

 

JB

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Glad this idea could help, Julia.

 

I don't know what TMG Utility is and cannot find it anywhere.
The TMG Utility is a separate program, written by John Cardinal, which can quickly perform large scale, major changes to your TMG project. For more details see here. John offers it as DonorWare, which means you can obtain it for free, but he asks that satisfied users donate in his name to his favorite charity.

 

I highly recommend it, and find this Utility to be a wonderful tool whenever you have a specific action you wish to take upon your TMG project that involves a lot of people or tags or sources, and you can precisely define which of those should be changed.

 

Since it can perform significant changes throughout your project all at once, there are some common sense cautions to take whenever using the Utility. First, always back up your project before using the Utility, so if it does something you did not intend you can easily recover. Second, your project must not also be open in TMG at the same time you use the Utility on the project. Third, the Utility defaults to a very useful "Log only" feature of producing a Log file of what it "would have done" but does not actually make the changes. You can review that Log to be sure you are getting exactly what you want before turning off "Log only" and rerunning to actually make the changes.

 

I had TMG 4 before and haven't got used to V8 yet.
I have been using TMG since Version 3 and understand your learning curve. If you have not noticed them, I also recommend Terry Reigel's on-line pages of Tips about using TMG found here. Terry is also the author of a Primer for TMG which is an excellent introduction to the program.

 

Welcome to Version 8, and don't hesitate to post new topics if you have questions.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you yet again for your help. I have downloaded the TMG Utilities and seem to recall using them before, but I had just forgotten about them.

 

JB

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×