Family Historian User Group

I am trying to tidy up my place list which has some 20,000 plus entries as I don't use the address field

This database was inported from TMG so has specific fields of town, county, etc

If I start to type in a place name all it filters on is part1 (in this case the address)

What I need is to find says Bosham in any part of the place list

Surely find should do that or am I missing something after 20 years of using FH

Two options:

• In the Places record window, use the filter field at the top to find the place records that match the filter anywhere.
• Edit > Find will search for text in places (you can specify to just search places) and it will find the text in the places associated with facts and display the corresponding facts.

Which is best depends on what you want to do with the results, but if you're tidying up place records the first option probably makes more sense.

If, however, option 1 is what you're already doing, and it isn't working, we need to dig into that a little.

When I filter on e.g. Cole I get

this:

I'll just throw this in - it may be totally irrelevant. I'm currently using the plug-in Rearrange Address and Place Parts, having discovered that (a) if you select one address / place pair at a time, it'll take ages but the process is controllable, and (b) the selection is just a simple selection and not a Regular Expression - why I thought it might be an RE, I don't know but I need garlic and stakes whenever anyone mentions Regular Expressions.

Anyway, for various sensible reasons the plug-in avoids the possibility of duplicate Place records by sticking {A0} or {A1} or... on the front of a placename.

The point about this is that if you try to filter placenames on "Dundee", say, it will not find "{A0}Dundee, Forfarshire, Scotland" - it appears to think "{A0}Dundee" is different from Dundee, i.e. I believe that there has to be a space in front of the string to be filtered on.

Could it be that John has an issue with "Bosham" not being preceded by a space in the place-name??

I'm guessing the OP is using Tools > Work with Data > Places... which doesn't allow filtering in the way Helen describes as part of the Places tab, and lists the headings as Part 1, Part 2, etc.

Thanks all for suggestions
Yes I am talking about the tools/work with data/places
I want it to work like ColeValleyGirl says in the places record window which is a filter not a find
The reason for wanting to use the work with data is that I can then use the "where used" tab to resolve things without have to go elsewhere
Here I have sort on part3 and then started to type an address
I would have expected it to find the first "s" which it clearly hasn't
I would expect it to find on the column I had selected
Also Helen how have you got the place parts into your places record window I cant or is this old (in both ways) guy missing something!

Isn't an option on the menu and I can't even find it being used in a query - can you please explain as it would at leaast make it easier

Adrian
I have used the Rearrange Address and Place Parts, plugini successfully to do the initial sort out after importing from TMG

However with a database of 25,000 place names doing things the way you suggest would take to long

It is fine for moving fields but then to my mind there is one thing missing - the ability to only do it where part is is Wales or something similar

Having come from TMG with this particular database I use the columns view All the places include address as part1 and then the rest is
Town, county (US), County (UK)/state, Country

As I use mapping a lot for tracking people in towns you need the address with the place name as you can't map on address alone

John, each Place part column is configured thus:
etc.

Also, not as convenient as the Where Used Button in Work with Places, but ALT-V-L in the records window will bring up the record links.

Helen
Thanks for those
Should have remembered =TextPart(%_PLAC.TEXT%,1,1) - but not something I use that often

Whilst the Alt-V-L is useful it is, as you say, not as good as where used which gives you the events and dates as well as just the the names with the shortcut gives

Back to my initial request which is why find is not working as it should and I beleive that it should use the filter that is in the records window

It works fine it you don't use columns but as soon as you use columns, sort on one and then use find it still finds based on not using columns

The help on working with places seems a little vague mind I haven't explored the knowledge base fully

John,

Probably worth raising with CP as a bug report?

Edit > Find will give you the Facts but not the dates.

The KB probably isn't going to get you much further.

I can't answer why the Work with Data > Places screen does not function in that way, I guess it is just written differently. I don't think you are missing any tricks, I have always found the functionality there a bit basic and I normally just use it to modify a place name across my entire tree.

Do you have Mike Tate's "Where Used Record Links" PlugIn installed? If you do, and have ticked the option to "Add to Tools Menu", then once you have selected a place in the Places Records Window, you can do Alt-T (Tools) and then select the "Where Used Record Links" option - this gives you the sort of data I believe you are looking for.

Helen,
In your records window for places, how did you get the Part1, Part2 etc to show in separate columns?
I assume you used '<Other..>, but what data reference did you use for the various parts?

Mike, see above:

https://fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php ... 78#p129154

Duh -

Helen
I will take it up with Simon (CP)

Adrian
Thanks for reminding me - already have it but does more than I want and nearly as long to get there

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑

23 Oct 2022 08:01

Also, not as convenient as the Where Used Button in Work with Places, but ALT-V-L in the records window will bring up the record links.

I tried to do the "press three keys simultaneously" of Alt-V-L (thinking this was an undocumented special short-cut) which got a bit tricky, before realising that "Alt-V L" (Alt-V followed by L) works and is more memorable/decodable as "Menu>View>Links" (for those who have driven menus by key strokes rather than by mouse).

Also no need to shift for upper case - but Alt-v l is confusable for those (most?) of us that use non-serif screen fonts.