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Stumped on formula to assign issues numbers to multiple pages where a last name is displayed

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Are you struggling to efficiently assign issue numbers to names across multiple pages in your genealogy publication? The challenge of organizing data—like parsing last names and page numbers—can be overwhelming, especially when relying on manual methods. Fortunately, Excel can automate this process. By harnessing the power of formulas, you can streamline your indexing, ultimately creating clear columns for names and their corresponding issue numbers. Let’s dive into an effective approach to transform your data cleanup and make your indexing task effortless!

I am trying to create an index for an scanned genealogy publication in which I have a last name in all caps, separated by a comma, first name(s) information that may include some maiden names in caps. The last information is a series of page numbers in which the person’s last name appeared. Page numbers are separated by commas.

Here’s what the source information might look like: “JONES, Thomas 7, 11, 49, 100”. I can parse last name and first name(s) into cells with no problem. Page numbers can be assigned either to one cell comma separated or as one number in a separate cell in the row. I have parsed the numbers into the separate cells because it results in a numeric value

The data needs considerable time to clean up which I won't bore anyone. That's why I want to replace my eyeball method of assigning issue numbers with an excel method. I need to read one or many page numbers to assign to the names issue numbers with some names appearing in up to all four issues

My first attempt was to try this IF/AND formula =IF(AND(G1>=1, M1<=40), 1, "") in one cell and three additional functions with the remaining page ranges and issue number. This did not work as planned, nor does nesting the IF/AND statements. Lookups don’t seem to be the answer either.

Final result would be four columns “JONES” “Thomas” “7, 11, 49, 100” and “1,3,4” representing the issue numbers in which the names appear. I have tried to keep this brief. So apologies if there are gaps in my logic.

Not sure what I doing wrong?

submitted by /u/greg72nova
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