Everything is a mess!

I used Elements Organizer a number of years ago and  found it so helpful in actually being able to locate photos. After installing 2020, I hoped for a similar experience. Somehow my Mac Photos have duplicated themselves and I have about 8 copies of nearly every photo. So, I thought Organizer could help me sort this out by identifying duplicates (which I do not even see a menu selection for doing that), and I would be able to order them in a way that made sense.

Instead, what I have is countless folders with meaningless labels, each holding one or two photos. Here is a screen shot of my folders:

and this goes on for several screens.

The duplicates that I spent several hours trying to delete reappear everytime I open Organizer (I did elect to delete from HARD DISK for each one). Edited to correct to add Hard Disk rather than catalog.

And, none of my metadata is available. At a minimum, I would like to know when the photo was taken, but every date is, for some reason, 8/16/19?

Sorry for this long, complicated post. I am grateful for any guidance anyone can provide.

I am using a MacBook Air

Thank you!