Globally change name of event?

[Melinda Anderson]

Over the past 20 plus years I've changed genealogy programs a few times. I went from Reunion (for Windows!) to FTM to MasterGenealogist to Legacy- and then back to Reunion (and FTM)when I got a Mac 5 years ago. During the last 5 years I've done very little with my genealogy, but I am now back into it with a vengeance- and am determined to get it all organized and ready to pass on to the next generation.

At some point during the switching back and forth between programs, some events with crazy names have showed up in my data- and I've pretty much ignored them and had no idea how widespread the problem would be until now. I don't know which GEDCOM transfer did this- and I wish I'd taken care of it at the time! I do not have any of the old databases on any computer, so I can't make new GEDCOMS.

Example of the names? They generally start with an asterisk and then have a category such as OCCU or CHAN. I am wondering if there is any way to globally change the name of an Event such as *OCCU to Occupation- so that the change shows up in all the people who have that event. I thought I'd ask, instead of going through my people one by one.

I apologize in advance if this is addressed in another thread.

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Globally change name of event?

some events with crazy names have showed up in my data-...

Example of the names? They generally start with an asterisk and then have a category such as OCCU or CHAN. I am wondering if there is any way to globally change the name of an Event such as *OCCU to Occupation- so that the change shows up in all the people who have that event.

Yes, you can absolutely do what you want.
You may be able to get away with renaming fields (search the manual for "Editing Attributes of Fields")

But if you have the same kind of information in two different fields you may need to get more elaborate (Essentially you'd be moving the data in the field "*OCCU" to the field "Occupation", then deleting the field "*OCCU".) For this sort of operation, look in the manual searching for "Moving Fields", and "Deleting Fields".

You really want to move or delete fields only on a copy of your familyfile (as the manual suggests), because if you make a mistake it's not easily undone.

[Melinda Anderson]

Re: Globally change name of event?

Yes, you can absolutely do what you want.
You may be able to get away with renaming fields (search the manual for "Editing Attributes of Fields")

But if you have the same kind of information in two different fields you may need to get more elaborate (Essentially you'd be moving the data in the field "*OCCU" to the field "Occupation", then deleting the field "*OCCU".) For this sort of operation, look in the manual searching for "Moving Fields", and "Deleting Fields".

You really want to move or delete fields only on a copy of your familyfile (as the manual suggests), because if you make a mistake it's not easily undone.

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly- it sounds doable! I was dreading editing the events for each of my 5000 plus people.

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Globally change name of event?

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly- it sounds doable! I was dreading editing the events for each of my 5000 plus people.

I once moved all my "christenings" to "baptisms". It's not hard

[Melinda Anderson]

Re: Globally change name of event?

I once moved all my "christenings" to "baptisms". It's not hard

One of my events is *CHAN with a date in the last 10 years- so I assume this means "changed". Wondering if I can globally delete that. Well- I can't do anything this week (too busy), but I want to dive into it soon. Thank you again, Dennis. And my descendants thank you too!

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Globally change name of event?

One of my events is *CHAN with a date in the last 10 years- so I assume this means "changed". Wondering if I can globally delete that. Well- I can't do anything this week (too busy), but I want to dive into it soon. Thank you again, Dennis. And my descendants thank you too!

Yes, according to the GEDCOM standard CHAN "Indicates a change, correction, or modification. Typically used in connection with a DATE to specify when a change in information occurred."

I forget the circumstances under which an "*" is appended to a field name when importing a GEDCOM.

Enjoy your spring file cleaning!