To identify duplicates in a large list of personal records, I'm replacing all names with a CONCATENATE of Name and Date of Birth (DOB). Here is the sheet I'm referencing (DOBs!):
DOBs! -----------------------------------------
C D E F G I K
Name Years Start End # Yrs DOB NewNameDOB
Sally Adams 2014-2014 2014 2014 1 1968-1204 Sally Adams1968-1204
John Agnew 2014-2014 2014 2014 1 1979-0419 John Agnew1979-0419
Bob Anderson 2013-2014 2013 2014 2 1965-0402 Bob Anderson1965-0402
Antonio Andrews 2014-2014 2014 2014 1 1955-0716 Antonio Andrews1955-0716
Julie Assan 2012-2014 2012 2014 3 1978-0805 Julie Assan1978-0805
On the main sheet (Employees!), each person has a row of data for each active year. Work 14 years, you have 14 lines of data to track.
Employees! -----------------------------------------
C D **E** F G H I J...
Year Name NewNameDOB Dept
2013 Julie Assan Julie Assan1978-0805 East
1998 Mike Rogers Duplicate in Same Year Main
1999 Mike Rogers Duplicate in Same Year Main
2000 Mike Rogers Mike Rogers1969-0510 Main
2001 Mike Rogers Mike Rogers1969-0510 Main
As mentioned, I need to separate duplicate names from 10395 records (like Mike Rogers and Mike Rogers). Employees! column E will now identify the employees as Julie Assan1978-0805 and Julie Assan1980-0131 (for example).
Today we take my first step, using the years they worked in order to solve 99% of the duplicates. After this, only a few duplicate names will be left who worked at the same time as each other, which I'll have to handle manually.
If the Employees! sheet has a 2013 record for "Julie Assan," then the first step is to check DOBs to find any Julie Assans who worked in 2013. My new column E in Employees! will take the current 2013 record of Julie Assan, and find any matches in DOB! where C (name) matches Julie Assan, E <= 2013, and F >= 2013. Usually, there will be only one match, and it will tell me that is Julie Assan1978-0805. Sometimes, there will be two Mike Rogers who worked during the same year, and it should tell me "Duplicate in Same Year".
On the Employees! sheet column E, I've started with this...
=index(DOBs!$k$2:$k$10395,match($d3&$c3,DOBs!$c$2:$c$10395& ??? ,0)
Not sure where to go with this formula, whether that means adding "IFs" or something different.
edited to explain in great depth
Enter as an array formula by confirming with Ctrl+Shift+Enter, then autofill down. It first checks for duplicates using COUNTIFS, and returns "Duplicate in same year" if it is. If there are not duplicates, it uses INDEX/MATCH to find the NewNameDOB.