Finding duplicate records using a custom query

TerryC · Post by **TerryC** » 30 Sep 2007 10:01

I am aware of the settings to find duplicates in diagrams, but does anyone know of a way to search for duplicate records using a custom query and if so what expression and match to use ?

Thanks

ID:2530

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 30 Sep 2007 16:38

The duplicates in diagrams are actually not duplicate records only duplicate boxes.

If you suspect you have duplicate records, you might be able to use a query which shows the name and parents name, but I can not think of a way to identify two similar records automatically.

AnneEast · Post by **AnneEast** » 30 Sep 2007 18:46

The problem with having two people entered in your file gets very difficult in my case. I have a lot of completely unrelated families and many records given to my project by different people.

It is fairly obvious that some of the records are about the same people but because the data was submitted to the project by different researchers there are slightly different records. For example one person may have given a birth date and another the baptism date. (Don't get me started on their sources!)

While browsing through the list (7500 names) I can see that some records are about the same person. I don't want to merge them as I am afraid of losing some of the information! For a start I have made a named list of all those who appear to be duplicated (around 500). I'm not sure how I'll decide to go from there!

Any suggestions?

Anne

TerryC · Post by **TerryC** » 02 Oct 2007 13:52

Thanks to all contacts for your efforts. To make it more understandable, I occasionally find when looking at the records page that I may have accidentally added a persons record twice (possibly from different sources). I notice this when I find two birth dates the same listed next to each other, and then find the persons names are the same. At his point I look at parents of both names to see if they both have the same parents, and if so I delete one of the duplicate names found. The only way I can find if there are any of these duplicates is to scroll through the records page, and I wondered if there was a custom query that I could set up which would highlight any people who have the same name and birth year, to save having to trawl through the whole records page.

Thanks

TerryC

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 02 Oct 2007 14:16

What you would need for this is Pivot table logic which is not supported directly in FH, but you could always set a query with the columns you need and use excel on the exported data.

I think Open Office has pivot table support as well, but it does not call it the same thing.

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 02 Oct 2007 19:50

If you want to find potential duplicate records, get hold of PAF (free from the LDS) and run it's Tools->Match/Merge function. It'll do a reasonable job at find duplicates by looking at the names (middle names & soundex on surnames), birth date years, and parents.

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 03 Oct 2007 08:22

Jon - thanks for a great tip on PAF which I looked at once and didn't really explore. I have just spent some time putting in lots of records for ancestors in a small community and have (inevitably) many duplicates where records need tying together.
I downloaded PAF yesterday and has made a huge difference to the rate at which I can spot candidates for merging back in FH.

Family Historian User Group