Match Merge - by Bill George June 25, 2011

Quick Demo of Match Merge

Started by doing a quck demo of Match Merge on the Kennedy test database. I opened the Kennedy Family file and clicked on "Change", then "Match and Merge People". In the Match People Dialog I clicked on Find matches for Everybody; Compare with Everybody; Criteria for a match, Identical Last Names, Identical First Names. After clicking the "Match..." button a list of 5 candidates appeared. None were actual duplicates, but showed other people in the Kennedy FamilyFile that had the same given name and surname.

Get a handle on your FamilyFile

Showed ways to be knowledgeable about your own database, since Match Merge is all about merging duplicate people in your FamilyFile, you want to be aware of any that may exist.

1. See how many people... Statistics of your database
2. View Index, in Last Name Order
   
3. Find fragments, not linked to you (Tag Linked, Find unlinked, Set Flags)
   
4. Find unlinked people (one person, no ancestors or descendants)
   
5. Find People/Links in the Clipboard
   
6. Find interfamily marriages
   
7. Run a pedigree and descendant charts
   
8. Back up your database

Add some problems to your database

To demonstrate how to match and merge some actual duplicate entries, these duplicate entries were added (ahead of time)

1. Add Robert Frances Kennedy, b 20 Nov 1925
2. Add Caroline Bouvier Kennedy b 27 Nov 1957, (19 July 1986)
3. Add Husband Edwin Arthur Schlossberg b19 Jul 1945,
4. Add Child Rose Kennedy Schlossberg, b 25 Jun 1988

Run reports on your FamilyFile again

This will verify that you've added four people to your FamilyFilel

1. See how many people... Statistics of your database
   
2. Find fragments, not linked to you (Tag Linked, Find unlinked, Set Flags)
   
3. Find unlinked people (one person, no ancestors or descendants)
   
4. Find People/Links in the Clipboard
   
5. Find interfamily marriages

Match Merge Four People

Tag the newly added Robert Francis Kennedy and mark him. | Match Merge the duplicate Bobby Kennedy with all unmarked people | Bobby Kennedy should show up as a match | now click on Swap so that the new Robert Kennedy is merged into the already-existing Robert Kennedy | Click Merge | Click Save

Repeat this process for three others, (Caroline Kennedy, Edwin Schlossberg and Rose Kennedy) matching Rose Kennedy first.

Run final reports on your FamilyFile to verify

This will verify that you've merged the four people into your FamilyFilel

1. See how many people... Statistics of your database
   
2. Find fragments, not linked to you (Tag Linked, Find unlinked, Set Flags) - should be no people
   
3. Find unlinked people - should be no people unlinked
   

This Match-Merge is a Continuation of Fixing your Database

This process will put to use, all the skills you’ve developed

Situations that cause you to have to match-merge

1. Correct duplicates or mis-placed people
   
2. Add a new branch from a gedcom file someone gave you resulting in duplicates.
   
3. Incorporate “orphans” who match people, into your FamilyFile AKA Unlinked People, Unrelated people, Separate Family Trees

How do you find out if problems already exist

1. Review the Index to find duplicates (accidental additions)
   
2. Find Unlinked People
   
3. Find non-relatives, e.g. Other family trees
   
4. Go to your family card, Tag all related, Find non-tagged people

What precautions should you take to avoid problems

1. When you add a person take care to make sure they’re not already in the file. It’s possible they might be in the wrong place, or be an “orphan” record.
2. Check the index for duplicate Names
   
3. Review Reunion Manual for “Adding a New or Existing Person” (a search for Comprehensive Reports brings it up)
   
4. Manual - Section on Match Merge
   
5. Message Boards - Match Merge questions

Match & Merge Sources

Similar to Match-Merging People. It's caused by importing a gedcom file with duplicate records

Other kinds of Merges

1. Importing FamilyFiles
   
2. Importing Gedcom files
   
3. Import Gedcom Files into an empty Family File

Hardware Tip - Wolverine Hand-Held Document Scanner

Demonstrated this Color/B-W Wolverine Hand-Held Document Scanner Wolverine PASS -100 Portable Battery Powered Hand Held Document Scanner. It costs about $80 and is available at Amazon.com and Costco. I purchased one at the 2011 Southwest Computer Conference I attended in June, 2011 for about $80. Requires 2 Double-A Batteries and Micro HC SD Card

This scanner scans documents fairly well, for a hand-operated machine. I used it to scan some 1971 legal sized newsletters. I resized the 300 dpi images to 72 dpi images (from a width of 2,500 pixels to 600 pixels, decreasing the size of the files considerably. Each newsletter page I converted to pdf and appended together to produce an 8-12 page newsletter. For this it worked quite well. I've scanned over a hundred pages so far and the battery indicator hasn't decreased noticibly. The one thing noticed was that the work had to be on a flat smooth surface. For example moving the scanner over things like staples made unacceptable faults in the scan. I wouldn't recommend it for photos, but, if you have room to pack this extremely light device and have no other way to scan some paper photos in the field, it's better than no scan at all... and it's quite good for text documents.

Apple WWDC 6/6/2011 Steve Jobs Video - Notes
iTunes Max $24.99Apple WWDC 6/6/2011 Steve Jobs Video

These are notes I made while listening to Steve Jobs’ two hour presentation to WWDC on 6/6/11. A video of the presentation is available on the http://apple.com web site. He presented three parts, (1) Lion; (2) IOS Improvements; (3) iCloud. I highly recommend watching the video.

Macintosh Lion Operating System - Will be available in July 2011, $29.99

1 Better Touch Gestures - similar to IOS
2 Full Screen Apps like IOS
3 Mission Control - Control work spaces
4 Mac App Store built in
5 Launchpad - Similar to IOS
6 Resume - Saves your place
7 Auto Save & revert to last-opened
8 Versions - Like Time Machine
9 Air Drop - Personal Local Area Network
10 Mail - Full-Height with Summaries, E-Mail Conversation Special View will strip repeated forwarded text

Apple developed a migration assistant to help people migrating from Windows to a Macintosh.

IOS 5.0 Improvements

Available later in Fall, 2011 - Developers can test it now - $Free
1. Notifications - Notification Center - single place to make you aware - single swipe- Notifications auto remove - Lock Screen
2. Newsstand - Newsrack-type display, w/background downloads
3. Twitter - Single sign on, Twitter integrated into popular apps
tweet from Safari, Youtube, Use Twitter to update contact photos
4. Safari - Reader makes article front and center with single scrolling story. Email contents + link - Reading List added so you can read articles on other IOS devices - Tabbed Browsing lightening fast
5. Reminders App - Sync with iCal
6. Camera - Faster to "get in" and take photo, volume up button will take the button - pinch to zoom, AE/AF Lock, Edit photo - Redeye, crop, 1-tap enhance
7. Mail - Add RTF, indent, Drag addresses between To: CC BCC Search content of message - swipe for thumbnail emails - built in dictionary - split keyboard (works with all apps)
8. PC Free, Software updates over the air, delta updates,
9. Game center - Misc improvements
10. iMessage - New service between all IOS 5 customers. iPhone, iPad, Touch. Read Receipts, typing notification, send photos
11. Wifi sync to itunes

iCloud

Available Fall, 2011 - Free with 5gb of storage space. MobileMe will be going away. One point that wasn’t specifically addressed was, what was going to happen to iDisk and all the web sites and download areas on Mobileme of people who paid $99/yr.. In separate emails from Apple to myself, the current Mobileme accounts were extended for free to July 2012, so I suppose Apple may “take care of this issue”.

1. Automaticaly uploads iWork documents to the "cloud"
2. Integrates with your apps
3. Contacts, Calendar, Mail - need to keep up to date . They have been REWRITTEN to be cloud apps.
a. Contacts stored on the cloud & pushed to the other devices.
b. Calendar event stored in cloud pushed to other devices. Share calendars too
c. Mail - New Msgs pushed to all devices, no ads
THREE MORE APPS
d. App Store - Can see purchases on all devices
e. iBooks - Purchase History - New iBook downloaded to all devices, stores bookmarks on the cloud
f. Backup - Wireless backup to the cloud
Purchased music, apps & books
Camera Roll (photos and videos)
Device settings
App Data (90:17)
g. Documents/iWorks - Works over WiFi only. Pages document, stores to the cloud & pushes to other devices (Pages, Numbers & Keynote).
h. Photo Stream - Allows iPhoto to send Pictures to the cloud, Pictures Folder on PC, Apple TV will talk to the photo stream service. Cloud will store photos for 30 days. Photo stream is an additional menu item in iPhoto & Others
i. iTunes - Can download any purchased music at no additional charge, up to 10 computers.
Oh...and one other thing. Mac users can upload their ripped and non-purchased songs to the cloud for $24.99/year. This lets you have ALL your music in one central place that can be downloaded to all your music devices. Although this is the only part of iCloud that costs anything, it might be worth it.

One item that should also be pointed out: iWorks was just released for the iPhone, at no extra charge, if you had already downloaded it for the iPad.