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Archiver > TMG > 1999-10 > 0938880080


From: Dennis Rice <>
Subject: Re: TMG-L: Two people working on same database
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 11:01:20 -0500


Alice,
As Historian for the Edmund Rice (1638) Association, we have the exact same
problem - and have come up with a fairly simple solution to the process.

First, one person must be set up as the master from now on.

Second, distribut a copy of the dataset in sqz format to whomever needs it.
From that they will do additions / updates.

Third, the other users do their updates and they create a new tag - which I
call RIN (from the old PAF days). They insert the new RIN tag to every
individual that they have updated in any way. If they have added a new
person, add the RIN tag and put in the memo field "added" (this is not
needed, but does help you later on). In the memo field of the RIN tag,
insert the id number of the person that they are updating. NOTE that it is
important that you NEVER do an update to the id numbers from this point on.
This should never be a problem because you really don't care about the
individual's number.

Forth, after the other person has completed all updates, they need to
create a new dataset of all individuals with the RIN tag and their
descendants. This dataset is then sent back to you.

Fifth, you merge the updated dataset with your master (important - do this
by merging their dataset with yours - theirs is added onto the end of yours
thus retaining the original numbers) and creating a NEW dataset - THIS
PROTECTS THE ORIGINAL DATA!

Sixth, you create a picklist for all people with the RIN Tag. These will
have a new person number but will have the original person number in the
RIN tag.

Seventh, starting with a person on the picklist, note their new ID and the
RIN ID, now merge them. You will now have the tags from both datasets
together.

Caution must be used, as we have found that there is a bug in TMG on
creating a new dataset, cause unknown. TMG will sometimes drop a source
citation. So you need to review duplicate tags to insure that all old
citations still exist on the new tag (the one that has updated
information), if all ok then make the new one primary (*) and delete the
old one. If a citatioin was lost, then correct the new tag, again make it
primary and delete the old one.

You will end up with an updated dataset with only one entry for each
person. This process takes time and effort, but it works very well. My
cousin George King (seen on the list here often) send me updates to our
dataset several times, and I have to date merged in excess of 2000 names
through this process.

Best of luck
Dennis Rice
Historian, Edmund Rice (1638) Association



At 05:32 PM 10/1/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Has anyone had experience in having more than one person working
>on the same database and making additions, corrections, etc?
>
>Here is the problem. I wrote a family genealogy in 1982 which needs
>considerable updating. One family member volunteered and entered all the
>data from the book into a TMG dataset. I started out working on the earliest
>generations in a separate dataset while another family member who is also
>a TMG user volunteered to put in the more recent generations updated
>information into the main dataset which has the book information in it.
>
>We wanted to add my work and replace that information with the old dataset
>information. We each have a copy of the original dataset and I had the
>copy of the revised set (207 people out of 12,000 so far). But when we
>went to combine my additions into his it today we ran into a number of
>problems -- after several starts and stops we figured out how to do it.
>
>The problem mostely came from the fact that even though I had created FLAG
>for the people I was importing, the flag values were dropped when we
>started merging for duplicates. So, I couldn't easily identify the few
>duplicates in my dataset from the many in the original dataset. To solve
>this I printed out a list of people report from my revised set with the
>FLAG still set and compared it with the PickList in the original set.
>Since there were only 207 people I was importing to 12,000, this worked
>fairly well, but you can imagine that the search for duplicates to replace
>the revisions with the old information would have been REALLY
>timeconsuming (there are a lot of people with the same names without data
>yet in the 12,000 person set from the book) had I just let the search for
>duplicates continue!
>
>We realized that it would be GREAT if there was a way to have the TMG
>resident on a server so that we both had locked access. Then the two or
>us (or a third if we find a volunteer) coul dmake the changes without
>havijng to create a new data set, merge with the old, and tediously check
>for duplicats. Does anyone know if this is possible. It seems to me that
>collaborative work would be a great opportunity for others besides us as
>well.
>
>Any thoughts?
>Alice Eichholz
>
>
>
>
>
>Alice Eichholz, Ph. D., C.G.
>Professor of Liberal Studies
>Vermont College of Norwich University
>Montpelier, VT 05602
>
>phone: 802-828-8825
>fax: 802-828-8814
>
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