Family Historian User Group

Had done a Search and Replace in Place data only.

Searched for , Essex, , England
Replaced with , Essex, East, England

Results were all the old Place names were changed, but a new Place name was created

• The old Place name had Long/Lat associated with it

• The new Place name did not have Long/Lat associated

Then went through and Merge/Replace old and new Place names

Began a new Search and Replace and the program crashed.

Reloaded program and new Place names disappeared from Individual records, but appear on Records List/Places

• If I Filter on Records List/Places on , England the new Place names appear on the list

• However, If I Filter on Records List/Places on , East, England the new Place names do not appear on the list

• However, If I Filter on Records List/Places on East, England (without the leading ",") the new Place names now appear on the list

How do I recover the new Place name and associated with individual fact record as the old Place names

• FYI: No backup was created before the crash

I can't answer your query about why new records were created, I use Search and Replace a lot and have never had that problem. However, I thought I would just mention that Essex, East, England is not correct. I assume you were thinking of East Anglia, but that is not used in place names as it is not an official area, it is a loose term generally considered to be the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. The correct name is , Essex, England. I am an East Anglian, being born in Suffolk.

I have a similar issue knowing how a USA place name is correct, sometimes you see something like, Town, This County, State, USA. Other times the county is absent, perhaps you could advise me which is actually the correct way to record it.

Gary, as I am sure you know Place name fields and Place records have a charmed relationship.
If you were to manually edit a Place name field it will create a new empty Place record.
If not careful, the plugin does the same.

I am sorry you had problems with the plugin.

To recover your original data use the File > Backup/Restore > Revert to Snapshot... command.
That offers several automatic GEDCOM backup snapshots, so choose the appropriate date.

To adjust Place names it is usually best to alter the Place records and not the Place name fields.
See the plugin Help & Advice Usage Examples Place Name Changes and follow the Global Change Example.

This problem is cropping up too often and so I intend to add a warning popup to the plugin when Place fields is ticked and Search Scope is not Place Records.

When the plugin caused FH to crash was there any error messages?

No error messages. Just all of sudden the program closed.

Unfortunately, FH v7.0 seems to be susceptible to occasional crashes and CP would need crash reports but I am not sure how to get them.

Did the other advice to fix your problem work out OK?