Family Historian User Group

In thread Possible enhancement for Search and Replace (6069) John Morrison said

I had a similar date problem with the Change Any Fact plugin.

If I use the exact date of the fact I want to change, no facts are found. But putting in just the year does work.

Likewise with the place match option. If I put in just "Manchester", then no matches are found. The field has to be input as "Manchester, Lancashire, England" to be an exact match with my file

John, try as I might, I cannot repeat that problem, so could you give some more details please.

Are you sure you are entering the full Date filter correctly with the month spelt out in full?
Although shown in the Property Box with the month abbreviated, it must be entered in full as shown in the Records Window and Date Entry Assistant.
Filter 12 Jan 1922 will NOT match 12 January 1922 because Jan does not match January
Filter 12 january 1922 will NOT match 12 January 1922 because january does not match January
Filter 12 Jan should match 12 January in any year because the string matches.
Filter 12 Jan.* 1922 should match 12 January 1922 because .* matches any characters.

Likewise with the Place filter, spelling is important.

Are you by any chance using the Value filter instead of Date and Place?
This works for Events but not for Attributes.

It was the first time I had tried to use it Mike, so will have another go later. I also hadn't realised that wildcards could be used, so that may solve a lot anyway.

Did you not read the plugins:help:change_any_fact_tag:filter_options|> Change Any Fact Tag > Help & Advice on Filter Options ?

I write all this Help, but sometimes wonder if anyone reads it

Did you try my revised and now robust Search & Replace with Dates option in thread Possible enhancement for Search and Replace ?

This is a follow-up to a discussion in the thread Multiple Events and/or Assertions.

What I would like to do is filter out some of the vital records that were originally entered with Standard Events and change the Fact to a Birth, Marriage, or Death Registration Event.

Here's what I have planned.

• Find all the sources that are GRO indices, whether from Ancestry, Find My Past, FreeBMD, etc.
• Make sure that all of the Place names refer to <name> Registration District
• Use the Change Any Fact Tab, filtering on Place

In the Knowledge Base, the page on Filter Options says:

If Pattern Filters is NOT ticked, the filters are treated as Plain Text that can occur anywhere within the associated Fact/Tag value.

If I make sure all the places have the word "District" in them and filter on "District", would that be sufficient to isolate the Fact Tags I want to change?

I would run the Plugin multiple times, one to change the Birth to Birth Registration, and so on. The Custom Registration events for each type of vital record have already been created.

That should work OK.
You can experiment on the Family Historian Sample Project.
Then run on main Project after a Backup.
Check the results and if unhappy use Edit > Undo Plugin Updates or Restore the Backup.

Thanks, Mike. Still getting the hang of this, so I wanted someone to run their eye over things.