* Duplicate Sources

[palmers4]

Hi

I am in the process of using FH after several years on FTM, but I have a slight problem.

Due to fat fingers I have ended up with duplicate sources i.e. IGI and IGI#.

Does anybody know how I can merge these two together and form one master source??
[confused][confused][confused][confused][confused][confused]

ID:78

[Jane]

There are a couple of possibilities, depending on the scale of the problem.

You can use the Source Links option from the Source Tab on the records Window to track down and change all the IGI# references to IGI,  you can right click on the records window on the source and replace an existing source with another with out losing the citation information.

Alternately,  if you are confident with a text editor you can load you GEDCOM file into one and do a search and replace for the source reference.

This is not that complicated, but you need to exercise care when editing any file with out the aid of a specific program.  

If you want to explore the second option I can give you more details of what needs to be done.

[palmers4]

Jane

Many thanks for this.

I will look at the second option as I had a bad day and have about a hundred duplicates.

[Jane]

Manually changing sources using a text editor.

• 1. Note the record ID for the source you need to replace.  E.g. 37
• 2. The Source ID for will be the number with @Sxx@ e.g @S37@
• 3. Note the record ID of the source you want to replace it with e.g. 51
• 4. The Source ID for will be the number with @Syy@ e.g. @S51@
• 5. Use search and replace in your text editor (I use TEXTPAD) to replace all occurrences of SOUR @Sxx@ with SOUR @Syy@ e.g. SOUR @S37@ with SOUR @S51@  please note you need to put the SOUR in front to prevent the master record being changed.
• 6. Save the file as a new name and load into F.H and check all the links have been changed. Please note the old source should still be there with no links and you can delete it using F.H