* Bulk update of Event Addresses

[gsward]

For a long time, I have been adding the Address along with the Place for events like Baptisms, Marriages and Burials. However, I do have about 2300 events that currently do not have the corresponding Address field populated (almost always the church dedication). For each Place it is often easy to work out what they are manually because other events at the same place have been populated.

So I am looking for creative ideas as to how to maybe partially automate this task. Or at least a little easier.

Thanks

[tatewise]

Are there any clues in the Source Citations for the Baptism, Marriage, and Burial events that name the church?

[jimlad68]

I'm not sure if this will address your problem, but may give some food for thought.

As far as I can work out, I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, within FH identical PLACe records are reused, yet an ADDRess record is not. You may note there is no query type for ADDResses or Tab in the records window. To query ADDResses one has to perform a Fact query. There is the Tools > Work with Data > Addresses dialog which, like the PLACes equivalent, I do not find very user friendly.

So, for me, and especially as a TMG emigre where there was no ADDRess, I just use the comma separated PLACe record. I think many (most?) do similar. I think it is also more portable.

The reason I mention this, is that for the longer term, just using PLACe might be easier to manage and keep locations more standardised, and if you have a big update to do, now would be the time to switch.

I often get duplicated places but with different spellings etc (say after AS additions) and find the Merge command via the Records Window Places tab, a quick way of tidying up; would that help you.

As for automating your current setup: Possibly exporting various "queries"/"searches"/"search and replace plugin" to spreadsheets and analysing there. But I suspect it will still be a lot of manual updates.

If you are brave enough, and with ample backups, you could directly edit the Gedcom file. For instance the ADDR usually comes directly after the PLACe record and could easily be merged.

[gsward]

Are there any clues in the Source Citations for the Baptism, Marriage, and Burial events that name the church?

Mike, no there isn't a source record. Maybe my first step is to add one and link the similar records together? What was you idea?

Thanks.

[gsward]

If you are brave enough, and with ample backups, you could directly edit the Gedcom file. For instance the ADDR usually comes directly after the PLACe record and could easily be merged.

Thanks, yes this and similar ideas had crossed my mind too.

[tatewise]

Mike, no there isn't a source record. Maybe my first step is to add one and link the similar records together? What was your idea?

Source Citations for Baptism, Marriage, and Burial events usually draw on Parish Registers for a named church.
So I was thinking that the name of the church could be automatically copied in bulk from each suitable Source Citation.
But if you have not been linking Source Citations to your facts then that will not be possible.

That begs the question of how you know that the facts in your Project are genuine.
Without any Source Citations, how can you prove that the entries are a true record?

So perhaps your task is not so much filling in missing Address fields but filling in missing Source Citations and as a spin-off that will discover the churches and other addresses where events happened.

At the same time, it is worth considering Jim's suggestion of merging address details into the Place records and leaving the Address fields blank.

[gsward]

That begs the question of how you know that the facts in your Project are genuine.
Without any Source Citations, how can you prove that the entries are a true record?

You are right of course, I need to do this properly and add the correct source citations and at the same time update the address details. No short cuts!

Thanks.

[AdrianBruce]

To add a little spice to the question of what the address of a baptism is, there are circumstances in Britain where the baptism didn't take place at the church whose register contains the baptism entry.

I can't speak about circumstances outside Britain (all additions welcome) but I understand that in Scotland, baptisms normally took place at home (no idea if this is still the case). In England and Wales, the major exception to church based baptism is a private baptism. The classic private baptism took place at home when the child (or the mother in at least one case in my lot) was at risk of not surviving. Identifying a private baptism is another ball game.

We also need to be alert to the possibility of parish registers containing baptism entries for chapels in that parish. Sometimes chapels have their own register, sometimes they use the register from the parish church where they might have their own pages, or they might be mixed up with the entries for the parish church but annotated to say that they took place at the chapel in question.

It's all rather messy on occasions...