I'm doing a lot of merging databases and getting a lot of duplicates. Duplicates need to be merged i.e. some data is on record R1, other data is on R2. Sometimes they match completely (i.e. both say 1 Jan 1950), sometimes they match partially (i.e. R1 says 1 Jan 1950; R2 just says Jan 1950, or just 1950); sometimes they are in conflict (R1 says 1950, R2 says 1951). Relationships are another thing - R1 may link with children and R2 with parents. At present all this has to be done by hand which I find is virtually impossible unless you write it all out and then copy everything over by hand - it's VERY tricky! However, could we not have an "is the same as" relation. In the above examples we would just have a link under "Add" which would be "Add an identity relation". (Or maybe you would introduce a new individual who is identical to R1 _and_ identical to R2.) When the identity relation has been established, all events and relationships for R1 would also apply to R2. You could then show these on the screen altogether and they could then be edited in the normal way. (Thus you would see the two birthdates for R1 and R2 on th screen together, and would decide which to keep.) I'd welcome views on this idea: Is it useful? Is it doable? JOHN BIBBY

To John Bibby Rather than have a database with duplicates that are connected together, it is better to have each person only one time in the database. Have you use the Compare Two Databases routine that is in BK 6.5? I plan to do something similar to that with one database where you can merge two people from the same database into one person. So I am working on that currently. John Steed ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Bibby" <johnbibbyjohnbibby@gmail.com> To: <BK@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 9:06 AM Subject: [BK] BK - need for an "is the same as" relation > I'm doing a lot of merging databases and getting a lot of duplicates. > > Duplicates need to be merged i.e. some data is on record R1, other data is > on R2. Sometimes they match completely (i.e. both say 1 Jan 1950), > sometimes they match partially (i.e. R1 says 1 Jan 1950; R2 just says Jan > 1950, or just 1950); sometimes they are in conflict (R1 says 1950, R2 > says > 1951). > > Relationships are another thing - R1 may link with children and R2 with > parents. > > At present all this has to be done by hand which I find is virtually > impossible unless you write it all out and then copy everything over by > hand - it's VERY tricky! > > However, could we not have an "is the same as" relation. In the above > examples we would just have a link under "Add" which would be "Add an > identity relation". (Or maybe you would introduce a new individual who is > identical to R1 _and_ identical to R2.) > > When the identity relation has been established, all events and > relationships for R1 would also apply to R2. You could then show these on > the screen altogether and they could then be edited in the normal way. > (Thus you would see the two birthdates for R1 and R2 on th screen > together, > and would decide which to keep.) > > I'd welcome views on this idea: Is it useful? Is it doable? > > JOHN BIBBY > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > BK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message >