(Windows) Permanent control for duplicates

Permanent control for duplicates

When adding a new person to your genealogy, you may risk creating a duplicate, that is to say, create two distinct persons for the same ancestor. Heredis provides a tool, available in all entry fields for indi­viduals, to avoid creating a person already saved in your file. Heredis will control for duplicates at all times during the entry of data. If the person already exists, select him/her in the matching persons list and click on Choose to link the person instead of creating a new one.

Info • For even more pertinence, Heredis includes in the list of poten­tial duplicates, those persons already entered bearing a variant of the name you typed.

In the Add or Choose… screen

With the first letters typed in the Surname or Given Names fields, you see, in the Matching Persons column, the list of individuals already entered who may match the person. Step by step, as you enter new letters, the list of duplicates is updated.

In the Family Group Data tab

When you type in one of the fields of this screen, the full name of a person already entered, the Enter New Data icon (gray arrow) turns red . Click this icon to see a list of individuals who may correspond to the person.

Family Group Data

Check if a proposed person is in fact a duplicate

Select the person from the Matching Persons list or check in the Summary panel. Here you have more information for more effective comparison.
If it appears that the person you wish to create already exists, select him/her from the Matching Persons list and click the Choose but­ton. This will cancel the creation of a new person, and thus avoids a duplicate in your genealogy.
If you do not find a duplicate, continue.

Search for duplicates in the file

Heredis controls while imputting but the importing of data from other genealogists, or a moment of inattention may create duplicates. This powerful tool is essential for maintaining an impeccable gene­alogy file. Research and verification is carried out in one click. The results are clearly displayed and indicate the probability of duplica­tion.

The search for duplicate identifies persons entered several times in the genealogy file. The permanent control indicates possible duplicates as you tip but duplicates can be made because of an import file or an unguarded moment.
Choose Find > Find Duplicates… or click in the button in the toolbar.

Setup parameters

Select your search criteria for comparing the given name:

• Ignore: the search will consider only surnames,
• At least one of the Given Names is identical: a person whose given names are all included in the given names of another individual with the same surname will be considered as a potential duplicate,
• The First Given Name is identical: an individual with the same surname and the same given name as another individual will be considered as a potential duplicate,
• Tick the box One Given Name of One parent is identical: a person whose given names are all included in the given names of another individual with the same surname will be considered as a potential duplicate. 

Select your search criteria for comparing events:

• Ignore Events:  the search will consider only given names and surnames,
• Dates Strictly identical:  when an event has been detected and assumed to be an identical date, it must be displayed exactly in the same way in both files (Birth about 1801 and 01/1801 may not be considered as two identical events),
• Years Strictly identical: when an event has been detected and assumed to be an identical year for the event, it must be identical in both files,
• Define a Range of Years:  if you do not require exactly the same dates as the criterion for comparison, indicate how many years from a date to be tolerated for considering two events as identical If you specify range as «10», events that took place 10 years before or after another event may be considered as potential duplicates.

You can limit the search for comparing surnames:

• Tick the box Limit to a surname and its variants to limit the search integrating this criterion.
• Click then on the magnifying glass to select the required surname.

Click Start Search

Results

The list of all potential duplicates identified in your genealogy is dis­played in the Results tab. A person may appear several times in the list if there are sev­eral possible duplicates.

By clicking an individual, you display in the lower part of the column a summary of information concerning this person and in the right column his/her potential duplicates. By clicking on one of them, you display opposing summaries of the two selected persons.

You can use the following options for dealing with duplicates:

• Delete a person: it removes the selected individual in the left column of the screen if you consider that the duplicate is adequate and you do not need to merge them to obtain additional information.
• Mark Duplicates: all the supposed duplicates matching your criteria for comparison are marked. Then just check and delete the marked individuals if you wish.
• Edit Duplicates Report: all the supposed duplicates matching your criteria for comparison are printed in the form of an alphabetical list. Just check this list to delete all required individuals.

You may check it out in the summary about the persons concerned to check the data.

After selecting a person and his/her duplicate, you can click on Prepare merger of the two.

If there is indeed a duplicate, merge the two persons by selecting the most appropri­ate information on the Find Duplicates screen.

See Merging Two Persons to know how to merge.