I have lots of instances where Birth or Death info is also shown under “other information”.
It would be nice if I could get an option to correct these instances easily.
FamilySearch only allows one primary fact for Birth, Christen, Death or Burial. Additional facts are sorted under Other Information. Since these look like duplicate facts in RM you may want to remove them. Click on the “Edit RootsMagic person” button at the top to remove it. Then click on the refresh button near Unmatch button to reload the page.
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And it follows, that You should Publish>Reports and Charts>Fact List>List Type People w/ more than 1:
for Birth, Christen, Death and Burial
Thank you for your reply. I did know the procedure, but my problem is that I have so many instances among 9950 sheets that it would take me several days (weeks?) to do this one by one. It would be nice to have a tool to automate this.
Do you mean a tool that would delete multiple facts of the same type down to one only? How would it know which one should be kept? Would that decision not need to be made by the user by inspecting the multiples one person at a time?
Would that decision not need to be made by the user by inspecting the multiples one person at a time?
Not if the content is identical, I guess.
I’ve done this for Birth. Result : 284 A4 pages … !
If I’d spend 10 minutes for each page, 47 hours of work …
Given that it appears that you have created the situation, whether accidentally or by importing data, then fixing it is one of those prices we pay while learning. Either way, you are going to get any assistance in Rootsmagic in the near future. Features take time to write, test, and release. Unless you are willing to wait a few years, I would get to working on the 284 pages.
Thank you for your advice, kfunk, but I’m afraid I will have to live with the duplicates.
There is so much more to be done:
- Names of cities and countries are creating a lot of confusion.
- The same happens with date formats,
- spelling of family names,
- GED formats,
- duplicate pictures…
I hope that AI will soon be able to assist genealogists.
Cleaning up the Place List before merging people will help prevent duplicate facts. Once the duplicate fact is there you have to manually remove it.
Don’t know if this would help a little on places BUT if you are using RM10, you can go to Home and run Enhanced Properties Under File Properties on left side or Under Tools on left side run Enhanced Properties ( last on list)-- this database shows 444 Places Unused
click on view
If you are sure these places are all unused or you don’t need to keep them, you can select all and click on the trashcan–JUST MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR FILE BEFORE DOING IT…
There is also a missing and unused media-- the unused can be deleted…
I am very concerned about things being user-friendly. I have actually proofread the user manual for a genealogy program.
I have directly stated to Renee that even though RM advertises being user-friendly, in my opinion there is still a way to go. She has received some examples from me. Opportunities are hidden and one must know about them in order to be able to click through to them. A close example in this current case is the following: If you go to Places, under the three dots you will find an option Show unused places. It is not possible to delete these globally, you have to take them one by one. All of these are not in use, so they can only be deleted. The surprise was great when Support told me that then I had to go to Tools > Enhanced Properties list > Run Selected tools. Here you have a hidden option to delete unused places globally.
Although I can probably step on someone’s toes, it is my general claim that software developers do not see with the eyes of a common user.
Since I’m just starting to complain, another example.
Under Settings/General settings there is a line Number to display. Does a regular user know that there are more options under there? At least not me. I have put forward a proposal that this must come to light today, there is room for the alternatives on the same line and with the option to choose the desired alternative.
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I agree with you.
And indeed, I had never noticed "Under Settings/General settings there is a line Number to display. "
And just to indicate another one:
Why do I have to go to “Edit Rootsmagic Person” to delete the Birth in Other Information?
That takes a lot of manipulation.
I would prefer to be able to right click the Birth line and get the choice to delete.
Why? Because that is the way the program is written!
We all would prefer certain options to be on right-click menu however given that RM has professed a desire to keep the Mac and Windows versions in line, it has caused a number of issues with getting certain things pushed out to users. This situation was also blamed for certain high keys and keyboard shortcuts not being available.
I will grant you that this has made the program far less user friendly than it could be!
Thank you for the clarification. So be it. But still a pity that Windows users have to pay a price for compatibility with Mac.
I’m assuming you meant “number to Display” not “Line Number”. In either case all programs have a setting tab where you will find options for how the program behaves. The default for these are a decision by the design team. Once a user is beyond the newbie stage they should always check out the setting tab to see how the program can better suit them. The same goes with the “Run Selected Tools” as a user you need to explore the program and try things. Even if it was documented most users won’t appreciate it just by reading.
My answer will not likely fix your problem entirely, but some of your problems would be lessened if you returned to RM7 instead of upgrading to one of the newer versions which are less intuitive than the older versions.
I try to avoid all kinds of duplicates of information by adding all information from online databases person by person rather than by global imports from FamilySearch, Ancestry, etc. I do use RM10 daily for matches to FamilySearch which requires occasionally beginning with a new import of RM7 data to RM10. For me, that is a reasonable solution to no longer being able to access FamilySearch matches through RM7. It actually works quite well because I have RM10 on a second computer and can go back and forth through several generations on FS easily.
I realize many people have asked for and appreciate the new features that have been added to RM in the last 3 versions, but for me version 7 works the best and is a far easier program to navigate. I have suggested the developers continue to sell version 7 to those who do not need the new features with the caveat that the developers will no longer will be updating it. No one has jumped to implement my suggestion which has been requested by others as well.
I think you would find it easier to edit your places in RM7, then make a new gedcom file and go back to the version you have been using. No matter which version you use, I still believe you would need to edit your individuals one by one to get rid of those duplicates that you have in the “other information” section.
If you do not already have RM7, I think you can download and run it as RM7 essentials. Please someone correct me if I am wrong.
Thank you for your suggestion, but RM7 unfortunately seems to have problems with Windows 11 …
It actually runs just fine on Windows 11. What problems did you have?
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