* Cleaning up data

[Greyflyer]

Hi Mike

On the Plug-ins Forum we talked about my GEDCOM file being in need of a little attention following problems exporting to FTM. I've pretty much used the same GEDCOM file for 20 years as it started in PAF and then FTM before being imported to FH at Version 1. As you know I'm fairly computer literate but I've never been big on databases. My field was training material and Learning Management Systems.

As a start I've run the Show Project Status plug in only to be bombarded with a page full of errors. I can see that I need to fix the obvious ones like negative ages where I've dated a census as 1881 instead of 1891, but what about the rest? What do I really need to worry about in these results?

Yours aye

Ron

[tatewise]

What to worry about partly depends on how pedantic you are about your data.
Check the Plugin Help & Advice on the Result Set tab that gives more explanation about each report.

Fact Age reports you mentioned, but Fact Date reports may reveal similar Date errors. Note that both types of report are partly governed by Tools > Preferences > Estimates and by the Plugin Options tab settings.

Citation Entry Date reports need to be fixed.

Gender undefined reports should be corrected.

The No Birth.../Death.../Marriage... reports depend on how rigorous you want your database to be.
Everyone should have a Birth/Baptism/Christening Event.
Everyone should have a Death/Burial/Cremation Event or the Living Flag set to use the Privacy options effectively.
Every couple should have a Marriage Event or a Status of Unmarried Couple or Never Married.

The No Parent... and One Parent... reports may indicate redundant Family records to be deleted.

Unused Listed Flag reports may indicate redundant Flags except for the default Living & Private flags.

Unusual Multimedia... reports need to be corrected as the anomalies may affect the way Media is handled.

I think other reports are more of a warning.

If you wish certain reports to be inhibited then use the Plugin Options tab to hide them.

[Greyflyer]

Hi Mike

Got most of them fixed. Not much I can do where no Birth/Death/Marriage dates exist, apart from more research

What are your thoughts on "Fact Date is later than the individual's death date." For example William Anderson dies sometime between 1851 and 1856. But his son marries in 1877. Ancestral Sources, quite correctly, has put in an occupation for William based on that date. Should I leave well alone or remove the date and let the citation do the talking? Same applies to Wills etc.

Ron

[tatewise]

Hi Ron.

The BMD dates quandry is a personal choice and you may not be able to elimiate all warnings. In many cases you might be able to use circa year Dates or Date Ranges. If there is no supporting Source Citation, then you will know they are unsupported estimates. Don't forget that Census records often give some idea of birth date from the age given. Also the Marriage Status and the Living Flag can be used to avoid the warnings.

For such Fact Dates you could change them to say a Before Date such that the date is while the Individual was alive, which is what the Source is referring to.

[Greyflyer]

Hi Mike

Some of my media files are annotated TIF and Some TIFF. Is there a global replace option anywhere please?

I've also noticed that in the Records Window Notes tab the filter does not work. I just returns blanks all the time. Is there a reason for this?

Ron

[tatewise]

Yes, use the Search and Replace Plugin, and on the Extra Filters tab, exclude all except Multimedia Format & Linked File fields.

However, there are a few gotchas, depending on which field you are trying to change, and whether aiming for tif or tiff.

If you try and Search for tif and Replace with tiff then those that are already tiff will become tifff unless you Confirm every item found. So you will need to follow up with Search for tifff and Replace with tiff. Also beware of any filenames that happen to contain tif within.

Also if you change the file extension in any Linked File field, you will have to Rename the matching file itself.

Dare I assume that all your files actually consistently all use the .tiff file extension?
If so, then the solution is to use the LUA Pattern Mode top right of Major Options.
Then Search would be ^tif$ and Replace would be tiff that will only change Format fields from tif to tiff, because ^ is start of field anchor and $ is end of field anchor.

I will look into the Notes filter separately, but please supply some specific examples.

[Greyflyer]

Hi Mike

I've found that if open a note and click in the text area a space seems to appear. If I delete this space and close the note it can now be found. Ho hum I've only got 90 to fix

Cheers

Ron

[tatewise]

But Ron, most of your Note records only have one link, so the Clean Up Notes Plugin will move the text to where it belongs as a local Note, and there will be hardly any Note records to fix.

However, it is odd, and perhaps a bug, that the leading space is not allowed to work in the Filter!

Alternatively, use Search and Replace Plugin to remove the leading spaces.
On its Extra Filters tab just select Note record Text field and clear the rest.
In Search enter ^ i.e. up-arrow followed by one space char.
Clear the Replace box.
Select the LUA Pattern Mode and Search & Replace - job done.

[KennethEvans]

Unused Listed Flag reports may indicate redundant Flags except for the default Living & Private flags.

I get these two (Living and Private) reported as Unused Listed Flag. How do I get rid of them. You say they are defaults. Should I get rid of them?

[tatewise]

No, keep them as they are fundamental to several features in FH such as privacy settings in Reports.
i.e. Display say an Individual Summary Report and checkout the Report > Options > Privacy tab.

They cannot be deleted anyway.
See the FH Help > Search Help for Private Living and checkout all the topics.