Family Historian User Group

Tools>Record Identifiers

Individuals

Five Choices

If I have an INDI record......... @I683@ which one will post a _RIN (or some other search and replace type) of RIN 683 on the record? Custom IDs are not hit in the search of 6.6.2

Here is the need.

I have this going into several other Programs, who if a _RIN is not there, makes their own, and its a one up, so as is common I have number gaps in my indi records, and all other records and I want a way to synch them. The other Program(s) do not show Indi numbers just their RINs Same with Fams and so on.

Tools > Record Identifiers 4th & 5th Task will Copy existing record ids into the Custom Id/Automated Record Id field respectively.

That is the standard GEDCOM RIN field, whereas a _RIN field must be a custom field used only by another product.

However, I would expect most products to use the standard GEDCOM Record Id.

Which other programs are you interested in?
Maybe they could be candidates for the Export Gedcom File Plugin.

Ron,
As far as I see them, RIN's are there purely to link items within a single Gedcom file, and can never be relied on to stay constant within diferent programs, as I found that some genealogy programs tend to generate their own internal record indentities when the gedcom is imported (whether this is a correct interpretation or not, I work on the principle that if they can change, they will, and are not to be relied on!)

My way round this thorny problem is to use my own Custom ID, which I know will never change of their own accord!

This has the added advantage that by design, my Custom ID tells me how the individual relates to my trees root individual. (Which may difer from FH's root individual at times). Comes in handy when I am in a remote branch of my tree, and wish to navigate back to the nearest direct ancestor to the root person.

Maintaining record numbers does require some effort. Two programs I have used: when importing a GEDCOM to Legacy Family Tree there is an option to keep existing record numbers (if possible - presumably referring to the problem of importing into an existing tree) There is another useful option to not re-use unused record numbers; in RootsMagic it is possible also to keep record numbers, but first the GEDCOM has to be properly prepared, as in the Export Gedcom Plugin, so that RM believes the file to originate from RM!! In that case an extra option to keep record numbers pops up in the import dialog.

My experience in using several programs is to always enter your data in just one of them and use the others for processing that data but not adding to it. If you start moving data back and forth via GEDCOM it is a recipe for creating problems.

David

Mike, using Custom Id (REFN) is certainly a reasonable strategy, and I was going to suggest it to Ron.

Not all other products support REFN and RIN for all record types, but they are well supported for Individual records.
So it depends on the target product as to which will work best.

I second David's advice.

I'd just like to add a caveat to David's advice. Whilst RIN's will stay static when following David's advice, they may change if you 'tidy' or 'compress' the data within the 'Master' program, as this may result in wholesale changes to the RIN.
From personal experience, my advice is best not to rely on a RIN being permanently assigned to an individual.