Tools for analysing gedcom files

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 24 Apr 2007 14:28

I was wondering if anyone used any tools for analysing their gedcom files, either within or outside of FH?

Due to my sloppiness in data entry (and working too long into the evening and getting carried away with enthusiasm[smile]) I appear to have made some mistakes in the entry of individuals:

1) Following import of a .ged file from the IGI, I have an individual with two sets of parents - although easy to fix manually from the low level event editing, I can't spot a way of finding out everyone with family anomalies such as multiple parent sets

2) Due to over zealous creation of people, I think I may have two slightly different versions of the same family! I need to run off some pictures of each piece of tree and do some record comparison then merge some people back together (I think)

How to others find these types of problems? Are there checkers in FH I can run that I can't spot? Are there any other tools that do some 'simple' checks on the data?

Apologies for rambling!

ID:2309

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 24 Apr 2007 15:18

The short answer QUERIES.

The multi family one is easy

Just create a new individual query and add a column for
INDI.FAMC[2]>

and then exclude where that field is null.

If you do the same for
INDI.FAMS[2]>
and add columns for the spouse names this helps to spot for 'duplicate' wives/husbands.

Another useful one is to do a query showing the spouse, father and mother of individuals, then sort by surname and do a visual check for similar ones.

A quick tree from the duplicates with both diagrams on one chart makes deciding on a merge route easier.

Remember in the record merge you can also merge whole segments of tree at the same time.

As always before starting a merge : Do a backup.

arishmell · Post by **arishmell** » 24 Apr 2007 15:22

You may be interested in a program I've been trying recently, Behold, from http://www.lkessler.com/behold/ This is so new it's only in Alpha version, but already I like it enormously. It's free of course, at the moment, and very simple to use. It displays the data from gedcom files as a report where it's easy to spot mistakes, duplicates etc. It can open multiple gedcom files simultaneously for comparison and editing, without combining them. Right now it can't change gedcoms, so you need to check in Behold then edit in FH, but apparently the ability to export gedcoms is planned for the future. Even if it never gets off the runway, I'm delighted with what it does now. (I have no connection whatever with the developer, I just stumbled across it [smile])

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 24 Apr 2007 15:52

Thanks for the reference - I'll download and play!

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 24 Apr 2007 16:10

Jane said:
The short answer QUERIES.

[snip]

As always before starting a merge : Do a backup.

The problem with queries is you need to both be good at queries (still learning) and know you have a problem to then know to go off and find it - in a perfect world I want a super query (which maybe I should try and build) to find all common mistakes

As to backups I didn't realise I had broken my family links until a few sessions of editing later (yes I should work in a better way).

Motto - be more careful!

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 24 Apr 2007 17:45

I am an old school programmer, and always prefer to build lots of small queries one for each problem. So a set of simple queries are easier to write and debug than one very complex one.

You can always save result to named lists and then work down starting from the list contents.

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