Delete duplicates with a LIKE statement

M

Michael D.

Hello,
I know this sounds troubling, but bear with me... The data is not
particularly important at the moment. Anyway, I have a field with first and
last names (yea, both in one field). Various spellings, some include
Mr./Mrs, some include PhD, etc. I am trying to do a LIKE statment to delete
the ones that appear to be really close to being duplicates, for example:

Adams, Jon E.
Adams, Jon E., DDS
Adam, Jon E.

Maybe not delete, but append just "pretty much" unique into a new table for
further review. I can figure that much out after I figure out how to
actually query the Name field (which is where I need help)... The Find
Duplicates query wizzard doesn't seem to have anything I can modify to make
it a "Like" query.

Any ideas? Thanks! Mike
 
J

John Vinson

Hello,
I know this sounds troubling, but bear with me... The data is not
particularly important at the moment. Anyway, I have a field with first and
last names (yea, both in one field). Various spellings, some include
Mr./Mrs, some include PhD, etc. I am trying to do a LIKE statment to delete
the ones that appear to be really close to being duplicates, for example:

Adams, Jon E.
Adams, Jon E., DDS
Adam, Jon E.

Maybe not delete, but append just "pretty much" unique into a new table for
further review. I can figure that much out after I figure out how to
actually query the Name field (which is where I need help)... The Find
Duplicates query wizzard doesn't seem to have anything I can modify to make
it a "Like" query.

Any ideas? Thanks! Mike
Click to expand...

Is "Jon" "pretty much" like "Jonathan"? Not to a computer.
Is "Jon" "pretty much" like "Jane"? Maybe, to a computer.
Are "Fred E. Brown" and "Fred E. Brown" at the same address in Parma
Idaho the same person? Nope, they're father and son.
Are the names "Adams, Jon E." and "Adam, John" the same name? I don't
know how either a computer OR a human could decide without further
evidence.

You're attributing human intelligence to a lowly software program, and
I don't think it's going to succeed.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
M

Michael D.

John,
I know what you are saying, it's just more of an experiment than anything
at this point and the data is not really that important in the grand scheme
of things. I just had a request to do this for someone and wanted to see how
close I could get.

I was hoping I could do a "like" statement in a query and then group the
results based on the like or something like that.
 
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