Sorting

[Bill Guion]

Recently I found a 216 page book on-line with connections to my main family file. I decided to create a separate family file for the people in this book before I added the relevant people to my file. The book names individuals and assigns a unique number to the individual. I use this same number as a user ID # in Reunion.
Some of the individuals names are not known. I record an unknown name as [ ] (bracket, space, bracket).
I get some interesting results when I sort the People sidebar. Individuals with known names all seem to sort properly. Individuals with [ ] for last names all sort to the beginning of the People sidebar, as I would expect. However, this group is not sorted properly by first and middle name even though I used the sort function and primary key is Last Name, secondary key is First and Middle name:

Last Name First & Mid Name User ID #
[ ] [ ] 1055
[ ] Ann 0395
[ ] Ruth 0079
[ ] Abigail 0053
[ ] Sarah 1066
[ ] Mary 1041
[ ] Ithamar 0281
[ ] Susanna 0372
[ ] Martha 0365
[ ] Phebe 0291
[ ] Susanna 0226
[ ] Susanna 0350
[ ] Mary 0225
[ ] Hannah 1395
[ ] Mary 1046
[ ] Rachel 2000

In addition, when I sort by User ID #, I get more strange results:

Hunt Edward 0052
[ ] Abigail 0053
Hunt Jeremiah 0078
[ ] Ruth 0079
Hunt Lewis 0385
Hunt Augustine 0389
Holloway Lydia 0390
[ ] Ann 0395
Adams Alice 0955
Hunt Phebe 1053
Ward Edmund 1054
[ ] [ ] 1055
Adams Daniel 1523
Larabee Elizabeth 1524
Holloway Joseph 1525
Soule Hannah 1526
Hunt John 0094
Hunt Alethia 0095
Hunt Robert 0135
Hunt Christina 0136
Hunt John 0101
Pinckney Mary 0102

This is clearly not the entire list, but enough to demonstrate the problem. In the book, the individual's numbers are two, three, and four digits. I've added leading zeros because the sort seems to be alphabetical not numerical.

Does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong?

-----===== Bill =====-----

[M McCaffrey]

Re: Sorting

Bill, I'm presuming that you are sorting in the List-People window rather than in the sidebar. (I can't see that there is a way to alter the sidebar People list from a lastname/firstname sort.)

That looks an awful lot like a bug; judging from the Help entry for User ID Numbers, I'd guess that this is not a feature that gets much engineering attention.

My file of about 3,600 records has some User ID entries (they are numeric, without leading zeroes). As you guessed, it looks like an alphanumeric field (the screenshot in Help shows an example entry of "D-24"). So without leading zeroes sorting numbers doesn't work well.

What does this look like when you sort JUST by the User ID field? Or, is that what you are saying the second list represents?

[Deb]

Re: Sorting

I get some interesting results...

Have you tried to rebuild cache files?

This can be done by selecting Family View (if it is not already selected).

Then, choose File -> Rebuild Cache Files.

And, finally, click Rebuild.

I hope this is helpful in resolving the sort issues.

[Bill Guion]

Re: Sorting

Bill, I'm presuming that you are sorting in the List-People window rather than in the sidebar. (I can't see that there is a way to alter the sidebar People list from a lastname/firstname sort.)

That looks an awful lot like a bug; judging from the Help entry for User ID Numbers, I'd guess that this is not a feature that gets much engineering attention.

My file of about 3,600 records has some User ID entries (they are numeric, without leading zeroes). As you guessed, it looks like an alphanumeric field (the screenshot in Help shows an example entry of "D-24"). So without leading zeroes sorting numbers doesn't work well.

What does this look like when you sort JUST by the User ID field? Or, is that what you are saying the second list represents?

The User ID field sort is, indeed, in the List-People window. I apologize for omitting that from my message. And, yes, the second list is a sort just by USER ID.

See my answer to the next message.

[Bill Guion]

Re: Sorting

Have you tried to rebuild cache files?

This can be done by selecting Family View (if it is not already selected).

Then, choose File -> Rebuild Cache Files.

And, finally, click Rebuild.

I hope this is helpful in resolving the sort issues.

Deb,

There is good news and some not so good news. I followed your instructions to rebuild the cache files, and that corrected the User ID sort problem. But it did not solve the sort by last name, first name problem. Those with unknown last names, which I represent with [ ], all sort to the top of the list, but the first names are not sorted properly. All other individuals are sorted properly. This is not a big deal for me, and your instructions have resolved what was a big deal. Thank you.