It may be that you have an item, or multiple entries, that you want removed. It would be a pain to edit each entry. In this case, if you feel confident, use a plain text editor.
For example, this is part of the censusCensus records are national collections of population statistics. They usually record details about members of a household on a particular date, and are typically collected every ten years. entry for Gustav Holst in the 1901 Census on Ancestry:
Name: Gustavus T Von Holst Age: 26 Estimated Birth Year: abt 1875 Relation: Visitor Gender: Male Where born: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England Civil Parish: St John and St Margaret Ecclesiastical parish: St John County/Island: London Country: England Street address: Occupation: Condition as to marriage:
Should you for instance want to replace “Street address"The address structure should be formed as it would appear on a mailing label…", according to GEDCOM; however, this is capable of a number of interpretations, and Address and Place are best considered together.:” in the editor the following should be fine.Edit
Procedure
Only do this if you are confident regarding editing.
- Save and backup your GEDCOMGEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software. It is a file format that most genealogical programs and online trees recognise. file.
- Open the GEDCOM file in the plain text editor.
- Remove all instances of the redundant data using the editors commands – hopefully there will be a ‘replace all’ option.
- Save GEDCOM file and Open in FH. You may need to validate the data.
Notes
A few things to beware of replacing single words or short phrases using a text editor may well replace items you were not expecting, avoid using the global search replace without prompting.