Find Records Extension

The various options in this extension provide custom tools for locating related records.

Find Disconnected Records

This script helps you clean up a file by locating records that are disconnected from other records and therefore might not be needed in the file. The options are:

  1. Disconnected Records (Any Type): find any of the following types of disconnected records.
  2. Disconnected Families: find all family records that are not connected to any individuals or connected to only one individual.
  3. Disconnected Individuals: find all individual records that are not connected to any family records or associated with another individual.
  4. Unlinked Notes (or Sources) (or Multimedia) (or Research Logs) (or Repositories): find all notes records (or source records) (or multimedia object records) (or research log records) (or repository records) that are not linked to any record in the file.
  5. Unsed Places: find all place records that are not used by any records in this file.

Any records found will be moved to a new album. If you no longer need those records, open the album, select some or all and use the delete record menu command.

Find Lineage Errors

In large files, it is easy to make a mistake by attaching the wrong individual as a child in a family. Such links may result in one person being their own ancestor and therefore the family tree has lineage errors. This script helps you find such errors:

  1. Run the script and select the first individual in the file in the list that appears.
  2. The script will check the ancestors of each individual and print their names as verified. If one error is found, the script will stop and display a report of the ancestral line that has an error. This list will have the same person twice (i.e., they are their own ancestor) which means either that person has an invalid parent or spouse. Open that record and fix the error (you can open using the links in the report).
  3. Once the error is fixed, run the script again. For speed, you can select the last verified individual to continue checking where the script left off rather than start from the beginning. Keep running the script after each error until you get a report saying no errors were found.

This option only works in GEDitCOM II

By Their Age at Death

This script will go through all (or selected) individuals and locate all those whose age at death matches an entered range you will be asked to provide as follows:

  1. To find those whose age at death was greater than some value enter that age in years.
  2. To find those whose age at death was within a range of years enter the range as two numbers, such as "50 60" to find those who died at an age between 50 and 60.
  3. To find those who died before a certain age, enter the two numbers with the first number zero, such as "0 15" to find those who died before they were 15 years old.

Any records found will be moved to a new album. The name of the album will indicate the ages that were searched.

By Spouse's Age at Marriage

This script will go through all (or selected) familes and locate all those for which one or both spouses have their age at marriage that matches an entered range you will be asked to provide as follows:

  1. To find those whose age at marriage was greater than some value enter that age in years.
  2. To find those whose age at marriage was within a range of years enter the range as two numbers, such as "50 60" to find those who married at an age between 50 and 60.
  3. To find those who married before a certain age, enter the two numbers with the first number zero, such as "0 15" to find those who married before they were 15 years old.

Any records found will be moved to a new album. The name of the album will indicate the ages that were searched.

Find Similar Surnames

This script will go through all records and find those whose surname is the same or sounds the same as the currently selected record. The sound matching is done by the SoundEx code of the surname. The found records will be moved to a new album.

Find Special Events

This script will go through all or selected records and find those with one or more of a selected type of event. The found records will be moved to a new album. It is easy to customize the script to find additional types of events by opening the "Find Records" extension in GEDitCOM Editor and then using Apple's ScriptEditor to edit the "Find Special Records" script listed in "other files".