Places – Conversion of Place Details to Places #places #placedetails #update

Still works with versions up to and including #RM10. See Notes. 2025-08-04.

So you have your Place List all nicely structured having worked through and split Places into Places and Place Details and it all seems ticketyboo. Now you need to export your database to some other website or software which does not support the way RootsMagic exports Place Details and POOF! – you’ve been caught in another proprietary feature trap. Wouldn’t it be nice if RootsMagic had an option in Export for Place Details and Place to be combined and outputted as standard GEDCOM PLACes recognised by every GEDCOM compliant program? Until that happens, here is a possible workaround that modifies the data in your database.

Places-ConvertPlaceDetailsToPlaces.sql rev 2015-05-15 changed EventTable.SiteId backfill from -1 to 0 and test from <>-1 to >0; correcting either an original error or responding to a change in the RootsMagic value for an event not having a Place Detail.

Combines Place Details and Master Place into Places. This script should run with any SQLite3 manager having a (fake) RMNOCASE collation. One of its effects is to set a flag in the combined Places that the following script can use to reverse the combination.

Places-UnConvertPlaceDetailsConvertedToPlaces.sql
For those combined Places with the flag set by the first script, this one splits the Place into Place Detail and Master Place. The flag disappears if the combined Place has been edited so such Places can only be split manually. Also, if the Master Place has been deleted or its name modified, then the Combined Place is not split by the script, except, possibly for those Master Places that are a substring of the original, in which case, the result will be a bit of a mess. This script is really an UNDO to provide an escape if you inadvertently ran the first script on your master database, not on a copy, and have no backup.

Notes:

1. Preserves the geo-coordinates and Note from original Place Detail in its conversion to Place.
2. Original Place remains as-is but may become unused if, previously, it had a Detail for every use.
3. The original Place Note is left with the original Place and not combined with the Notes from the Place Details that have been converted.
4. The newly converted Places may not have Standard or Abbreviated Names. RM’s Geo-code function can be used to generate coordinates and Standard Names.
5. Later versions of RM have Reverse Place Names in the PlaceTable for speedy display in the Places view. The Convert script does not generate them but RM’s Geo-coding function does appear to. Reports create their own reversals for Indexes and do not rely on that table’s column.
6. Remember to REINDEX in SQLite on leaving RM to execute one of the above scripts on a RM database and to Rebuild Indexes in RM when you return to it.