I recently did somewhat the same thing with three of my databases. One set on the laptop and one on the desktop. I had added or changed some information on the laptop version while doing some research. At the same time, I had found some entries for the desktop versions. When it finally came time to combine, I renamed and saved a backup of each file. Copied these to a new folder and restored them. ONe carried the prefix "D" for desktop and the other "L" for laptop. After restoring, I created a new file with the prefix "A" for All. Using the drag and drop (the equivalent of creating gedcoms and importing) I proceeded to combine each set of pairs into the new base. (This kept the orgionals intact with no changes). Next, and this is VERY important, I combined all of the duplicate sources. It doesn't seem that places will cause a duplication problem. Using three merges, I was able to get down to just a couple of dozen manual merges. The first was to combine the records with matching AFN numbers, second the matching RESN and finally, the Smart Merge. After this the Find Duplicates gave me the couple of dozen checks (out of over 8000 individuals) which I felt was a pretty good return. The counts of individuals between the two databases indicate that I may still have 3 or 4 records that are duplicated (probably "Unknowns") which will surface while working on the data. Keith Thompson FormalSoft@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 6/12/2001 10:49:41 PM Mountain Daylight Time, > Clare@Sierratel.com writes: > > > These are IDENTICAL ENTRIES. I don't how to make it any clearer. > > > Two people named John Smith, born in 1850 in New York City are also > identical, but that doesn't mean Family Origins should merge them > automatically. This is why there is a duplicate search and merge so FO can > display the two records to you and let you decide if they should be merged. > > - Bruce > http://formalsoft.com - Family Origins genealogy software > http://family-reunion.com - Plan the perfect family reunion > > ==== FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS Mailing List ==== > PLEASE send personal replies and "THANK YOU" message privately. All messages on this list are archived and archiving takes up valuable space. > > ============================== > Create a FREE family website at MyFamily.com! > http://www.myfamily.com/banner.asp?ID=RWLIST2 -- Keith Thompson, Worthington, OH Home Web Page: http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~kthompson/ Genealogy Web Page: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kthompson Efax # (419) 818-1912 JFax & Voicemail (530) 484-3831