Hello Wayne Many thanks for your very informative mail. I haven't tried any of your suggestions yet, but it all sounds completely logical to me. I will try as you suggest, and let you know. Thanks again Carol Barrie ----- Original Message ----- From: Wayne League <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 5:17 AM Subject: Re: [FO] FO V.7 duplicate persons problem > "Carol and Alf Barrie" <[email protected]> wrote: > > >4. I opened another database (empty) and restored from the other backup. > > > >I now have one database where most people are duplicated, but because they > >both have the same record number, I cannot merge them as they are the 'same > >person'. > > Alfred suggested that you restore the database to a new, empty FOLDER, > not to a new database. You cannot restore a backup to an existing > database for the restore re-creates the database at the restore > location. If you restore the backup to the same folder as the > existing database, it will overwrite it with the backup .... at least > it is supposed to. I don't remember whether FO7 would delete the > existing database before it restored the backup or not. If it did not > then that might explain how you are getting all the duplicate people > with the same record number ... if FO7 is adding the restored database > to the existing database rather than deleting the existing database > first. > > But packing the database will not cause duplicates to appear. Since > you had duplicates before you restored the database, that indicates > you also had the duplicates before you backed up and therefore the > duplicates are also in the backup. > > You might try exporting a gedcom file of your entire database and > importing it back into a new database. (With a gedcom file, you DO > create a new, empty database to import it into.) When FO imports a > gedcom file, it ignores the record numbers in the gedcom, starts the > first person with record number one and goes up sequentially with no > duplicated record numbers. So, if duplicates are in the gedcom file, > they should all have different record numbers in the imported database > and you should be able to merge them. > > I can't imagine how FO allowed your database to get in such a > condition. The only thing I can think of is if FO7 were appending a > restore to an existing database rather than overwriting it. I vaguely > remember old versions of FO might have done that and I don't remember > if it was fixed by the time FO7 came along or not. > > Wayne League > > > > ==== FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS Mailing List ==== > The "Family Origins® Wish List" http://formalsoft.com/wishlist.htm > ??? FAQ ??? -- http://www.graabek.com/fow/fofaq.html >