Many casual readers may not be paying close attention to this tread. Some incorrect information has been posted as gospel, but is flat wrong. Here is a quick summary about record numbers. 1. Record numbers are assigned sequentially as individual records are added. This can be by entering the data yourself, importing a GEDCOM, and Drag and Drop between databases. 2. Record numbers are never reused within a specific database. 3. Record numbers are different from Reference Numbers, which is a user controlled fact. 4. Record numbers (within a database) can only be changed during a merge of records. During a merge, only the To record survives and the From record is deleted. Thus the "new" record number is the To record number. 5. Packing does not change record numbers. Packing removes the space occupied by deleted records and rebuilds the Index files. 6. Some other genealogy software provides the ability to "reuse" record numbers, but not FOW. One piece of information about RootsMate stated that it will not read FOW data files. Transferring of the data will need to be done by a GEDCOM. This means the record numbers will be reassigned. Futher details has not been released. A word of advice to those not really up to speed on GEDCOM's - learn everything you can and practice importing and exporting. Learn about the LST (error) file and it's messages too. Remember, a GEDCOM will only export the data you explicitly set up for export. If an option is not turned on, that data will be excluded. Two places control what is exported, the GEDCOM dialog and the Fact Types dialog. Each fact has it's own setup.

I have not been following this discussion very carefully since I am on vacation. I thought I remembered from a past discussion on a similar topic that one could duplicate the record number to a REFN number that was a fact and the number would not change unless the user changed it. Of course, with a large database, it could be time consuming to make the new fact and add the number, but depending on the situation, it might be worthwhile to do this. The one way to reuse record numbers in FO is to export a gedcom of your database, delete the old one if you want the new one to have the same name, and import the gedcom into a new database. That way everything is renumbered sequentially without missing numbers. I do this occasionally as a super form of packing, believing it helps to keep my database healthy. Margaret Scheffler