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Archiver > TMG > 2003-05 > 1051971779


From: Lee Hoffman <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Re: Cleaning up Places & Dates
Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 10:22:59 -0400
In-Reply-To: <3EB33EA9.2010003@carolina.net>


Alice Campbell wrote:
>Editing the Master Place List doesn't really work because I don't want to
>loose all the info. I need to be able to connect the place and the people.

Well, actually editing (or better, "realigning") the Master Place List will
help a lot. The idea is to get the items into the correct categories --
city data into the City field, county type information into the County
field, etc. If you do this for all the data for which that is obvious then
what is left is the "non-place" data. Once you know what all the non-place
data is and have it in a specific field (I usually pick the Detail field)
you can then use the List of People report to give you listings of the
persons to which this data is attached. If you use the same criteria to
filter the Project Explorer (PE), you can start at the top and "step"
through the PE from one person to the next until you have "fixed" those
irregularities. Then you can edit the MPL again and optimize it to remove
the non-place data. For entries that don't go away following optimization,
you would do all this again until the MPL is clear of non-place data.

The List of People report will let you know which person(s) have the
non-place information but will not tell you which Tag(s) for that/those
person(s). You would need the List of Events report (not yet available for
v5x) for this information. However you can usually see which Tag(s) are
needing editing of non-place information if you have that data in the
Detail field.


>A List of Events with the appropriate filter works great because with the
>event you can print out the person's name. I am starting with country
>.not equal. to USA, England, etc. But when I get to State, this will be
>harder to filter. I believe I am limited to something less than 50. I
>guess I can use the MPL to shift the 'comments' to the country field and
>have another go.

But if you re-align the MPL so that the non-place data is in the Detail
field, things are much easier. You only have to filter for an entry in
that field. Depending on how many valid Detail field entries you have
(usually not that many) the resulting report is pretty much what you
want. You may be able to filter out some or even all of the valid Detail
entries leaving just or mostly the invalid entries.

>I was trying to use a List of People, since I was looking for the
>offending (or offended against) people, but I can't figure out how to get
>the tag names to print out.

They won't for the List of People, only the List of Events will help. But
again with the data in the Detail field, you can usually see the invalid
place data in the Person View. In a few cases, you may just have to look
at each tag for a person -- this should not be all that often (probably
less than a handful).

>Richard, if you can tell me how to do this with the List of People it
>would be a great help. I have never used the List of People to create a
>custom picklist. That sounds interesting.

This is only available for v4x. Select the Secondary Output of the List of
People Report Definition Screen and choose the Custom Picklist option.

For v5x, you would want to use the same filter criteria for the Project
Explorer. In the PE window, click on the funnel icon at the top of the
window. Enter the filter criteria, say something like:
Event-Misc Place Detail Is Not Empty END
and click on the OK button. The PE will re-populate showing only those
persons have information in the Detail field of a Tag. If you use a more
complex filter, the PE is less likely to include persons for whom the
Detail field is properly populated. Once you have the PE showing the
persons (assuming the PE is linked to other windows - see your right-click
menu), select the first person. Use the Person View to find and correct
the Tags for that person. Then click on the right-arrowhead at the top of
the PE to "step" to the next person. Keep doing this until you have
reached the bottom of the list.

Depending on how you create the filter, you may need to again filter for
another run through of the PE. When you have finished, click on the Clear
Filter icon at the top of the PE and it will return to normal.

Now, go back to the MPL for final editing. Then Optimize it and look at it
again. You may need to go through this filter and editing process a number
of times before you have the MPL as you want it.

>Meanwhile, this is working. Now all it will take is time and patience,
>neither of which I have much of.

Welcome to the club. But the above process should cut down on the time
part somewhat. And since you only need to do this once (*), the patience
part is only needed for now.

*PS. That is, you only need to do this once for each import of data. If
you are like me, you are always receiving data from other researchers and
importing it into TMG. So you get kinda inured to this process. <g>

Hope this helps -

Lee Hoffman/KY
TMG Tips: <http://www.tmgtips.com>;
My website: <http://www.tmgtips.com/lhoffman>;
A user of the best genealogy program, The Master Genealogist (TMG)

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