Family Historian User Group

I’ve spent a lot of time & effort cleaning up Source, Repository and Place Records in my primary project file, and I want to “copy/overwrite” these into my other projects (which use the same).

I created a new Project (with Split Tree Helper and some GEDCOM edit) that contains only these Records. My aim was to use Merge/Compare File and overwrite these into the other Projects.
But I find no way to discard all of the ‘current’ and add all of the ‘new’ in mass, other than going through the information pane and adjusting the Retain/Discard buttons, line-by-line, one at a time. Is there a way to do this with just a couple of clicks?

Is this going to work? Or is there an easier way to do what I want?

- rob

It may be that your Project structures need a rethink but I'll return to that later.

If you really wish to discard all the current Source, Repository and Place records then use the Split Tree Helper to delete them.
Then Merge/Compare File will simply add all the new Source, Repository and Place records.

The Place records will automatically link up with Place fields as they are linked by Place name.
But you will have lost all the Citations, so the links between Facts and Source records will all need recreating.

I presume you use mostly Method 2 'lumper' Source Citations, so the Source records for one Project will be similar to those for another Project. But as I said above, you risk losing all the existing Citations to the Source records if you discard/delete all the Source records. Since the Citations in Method 2 hold most of the information you will be discarding all that information.

As a general rule, the advice we give here is to only have one master Project.
That avoids the need to be migrating records from Project to Project.
It is relatively easy to produce subset Projects from a comprehensive master Project as and when required.
Conversely, it is relatively difficult to synchronise several subset Projects especially when there are overlapping records.

Mike, I know you’re a dedicated Method-1 Splitter; I’m equally committed to the Lumper contingent. You say “programme”, I say “program”; we’ve no need to argue that point. (please accept my commitment, and forgive my humor/humour.)

My ‘other’ projects are not subsets of my primary – they are completely different families, but they do use most of the same sources. These do have the same Record Names (for example, 1940 United States Federal Census), and Merge/Compare File does recognize they are capable of being merged.
I realize (realise) that if I delete the Sources in my ‘other’ Projects, the “new” Sources would have different ID #’s and I’d lose the Citation links. That’s why I thought that merging the details of my (cleaned up) source records would let me revise them.
I just want to be able to do that without a thousand mouse-clicks.

- rob

Two countries separated by a common language

It based my answer on your request "to discard all of the ‘current’ and add all of the ‘new’ in mass".

But I think what you are requesting is for the 'current' source records to synchronize with the 'new' source records.
Then the Citation links will be preserved and the 'new' source records replace the 'current' source records and retain the same Record Id as the 'current' records.

Although FH is quite good at synchronizing Individual records, it is not so good at synchronizing the other record types.
Even if it did, you still have to tell FH which internal fields of each source to retain and which to discard.
So I think you will have to go through each record and 'match' them and their sub-fields one by one.
But, hey, you are a 'lumper' so there won't be thousands of records to deal with and it is only needed once.
BTW: Don't forget to do the same with the Repository records.

I'm not sure of how to handle the Place records.
You cannot delete them in Split Tree Helper and if you delete them from the Records Window Places tab they may immediately get reinstated. So you may have to 'match' them in the Merge/Compare File dialogue too?

Yeah, and two separate data philosophies united by a common genealogy program/programme.

Well, that was ugly… I greatly underestimated the effort to do this.
“Don’t try this at home without adult supervision.”

872 Sources *
x 2.5 Fields (average per source to merge)
x__4 clicks ea. (pick>Discard, pick>Retain)
8,270 mouse clicks!

* Some of these have thousands, some, hundreds, but most have only a few Citations. I guess that makes me a “Lumplitter” or a “Splitumper”.

20+ years of data collection had resulted in inconsistent Author & Repository naming, Publication Information, Source notes, etc., and this is something I’d wanted to do for years, but couldn’t do easily. FH has the tools & capability. I love FH!
This did work, and you’re right – I only have to do this once, but I’m going to do my other “other” Projects the ‘original’ way – plugins, GEDCOM edits, and manual editing. I can break the task into pieces, instead of having to compare/merge all in one sitting. And they don’t have as many records to revise.

Thanks for your wisdom, help, advise, and patience.
- rob