Find Double Entries

Hello,

I have started working on an existing database. With somewhat poorly entered data btw. There are a few double/multiple entries, I would like to

A) Find and remove double records (They're not exact duplicates, "Van Damme" instead of "Vandamme" etc.)

B) Prevent new doubles, my inclination is to do this by preventing duplicate social security numbers since all 10 "Robert Smith"'s in the system have different SS#'s. But if you should know a better way, by all means...

Thanks, Jason

PS I have 2 columns, last name and first name, I'd like to know how I can do a search of both first and last name. Or just a more efficient method of searching

On Thu, 20 May 2004 07:26:06 -0700, "venusasaboy"
wrote:

Hello,

I have started working on an existing database. With somewhat poorly entered data btw. There are a few double/multiple entries, I would like to

A) Find and remove double records (They're not exact duplicates, "Van Damme" instead of "Vandamme" etc.)

B) Prevent new doubles, my inclination is to do this by preventing duplicate social security numbers since all 10 "Robert Smith"'s in the system have different SS#'s. But if you should know a better way, by all means...

Thanks, Jason

This can be a very timeconsuming and difficult process, and can be all
but impossible to automate: is "Robert Jones" the same person as "Bob
Jones"? how about "Robert V. Jones Jr." at 1223 Maple Avenue - is he
the same person as Robert V. Jones at the same address, or is it his
son? Are you aware that SS#'s are not guaranteed to be unique, that
you cannot by law require them, and that (depending on who's on your
list) they may be forged?

I don't want to be discouraging - but there's a reason that
address-list cleaning services charge high fees.

For ongoing use, you may want to have separate fields for firstname,
lastname, middlename, and suffix, and fields for address or phone
number. Given that names are NOT unique, you may want to have a
multifield unique index. (My friends Fred Brown and Fred Brown no
longer live at the same address but they did for many years).


John W. Vinson[MVP]
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