* Amending Surnames from CAPITALS to Lower Case in Notes

[brianlummis]

When I came to FH from TMG about a year ago, the Surnames were in Capital Letters (I can't recall if this was an option on import) and I decided to keep that format. Having read a recent topic about the recording of Surnames, when it was suggested that they should be entered in lower case (apart from the first letter), I thought that it would be a good idea to fall into line. I therefore used the Plugin "Clean up Surname Capitalisation" which worked perfectly.

However, what I hadn't thought about were the Surnames that were in Capital Letters in Notes which had picked up that format when using Ancestral Sources. Now when I use Ancestral Sources the Surnames are in lower case so I have a mixture in the Notes as I did not spot this for a few days.

There are nearly 900 Media Records that I entered prior to the change so the number of Surnames with Capital Letters recorded in Notes is quite large. I have thought of using Find and Replace in Notes which would be laborious and I am sure that there will be a Surname or two that slip through the net. The other option is to go back a few days and just amend the Notes since the change but for conformity I would also need to return to Capital Letters for the Surnames as well.

Is there any way that I can either make the job of Find and Replace easier or even better a Plugin that would resolve my dilemma?

I just wish that I had thought of the consequences before making the change.

Brian

[tatewise]

I presume the Find & Replace would work but it is the repeating for each surname that is tedious and error prone.

The Search and Replace Plugin should be able to deal with all those upper-case names in one pass, and probably automatically.

Can you give any clue about the shortest upper-case surname it must cope with?

Also exactly which Note (or other) fields might contain those surnames?

Then I can supply the LUA Pattern search and replace terms.

[brianlummis]

As you say, Mike, Find and Replace would be tedious!

The shortest name in my data is 3 letters, there are no hyphenated names and only one Mac but that is Mackay.

I think that the bulk of the names that I wish to change are in the Text From Source field as I have been downloading Census images and loading the Media using Ancestral Sources over the past year. Once I have the new entries from Ancestral Sources entered, I have then deleted the imported Census entries from my project.

Apart from a few other minor changes that have arisen when I have discovered a flaw in my previous research, I have stopped myself entering any new data until I have all the images loaded. Thankfully I am nearly there!

Hopefully this should make it fairly straightforward and if I do miss a few strays then they should be easy to spot and correct at a later date.

Many thanks for your help.

Brian

[tatewise]

I was a little hasty in saying Search and Replace would do it, so have resorted to a custom Plugin.

In my trials I have found many UPPERcase words that should not be converted.

So is there any regular structure to your surnames, such as always followed by a comma, or always at the end of a line, that would help distinguish them from other text?

Otherwise, every case will need to be confirmed one by one.

[brianlummis]

As far as I can see the only Surnames that need to be changed are those appearing in Text from Source and they are all followed by a comma. As there are also some individual Capital Letters followed by a comma in that field any Plugin would have to ignore those.

I am going out today so there is no great rush for a solution.

Brian

[tatewise]

Try ATTACHMENTS Amend Surnames From UPPER to Title Case Plugin Version 0.1 Date 02 Feb 2016.

To amend a surname from UPPER to Title case the following must apply:

• It must be in a Source record Text From Source field.
• That Source record Type field must contain Census.
• The surname must have 3 or more consecutive upper-case letters A-Z.
• The surname must have a comma after its last letter.

Check the Result Set and if anything is unsatisfactory use Edit > Undo Plugin Updates before closing FH.

[brianlummis]

Many thanks, Mike. The Plugin worked admirably and I now have a much tidier data set.

The way that you manage to resolve all those things that we do unintentionally always amazes me, and your help and support is very much appreciated.

Brian

[tatewise]

That's OK - I just love the intellectual challenge.