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Badger

Changing the Main Focus Person for Gedcom

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When I first started my project, way back, for some reason my husband got no. 1 spot.

 

I want to make a gedcom file with all my mothers relatives so that I can upload the gedcom onto Ancestry for all the many relatives from that side of the family. To do this, I created a Focus Group starting from the oldest Ancestor of my Mother and added all decendants + spouses. The list is exactly what I want, apart from the fact that my husband features as the main man, so to speak. I am able to change the focus within Ancestry to my oldest Ancestor but my Husband, bless him, still features as the main person. I love him dearly, but in the scheme of things regarding this project, he's just a bit player. As Ancestry is getting this information from the gedcom produced by TMG, how can I change this?

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Yes, it changes the way you see the tree so as the oldest ancestor is showing but above the tree is a line, which looks almost like a root saying Husbands name then oldest ancestor. As I want a gedcom to pass on to the members of this particular branch of the family, I don't want my husband to be mentioned apart from in the tree as my husband. The other way, I suppose is to have a new project where I import all descendants and spouses but delete my husband, then add him again, but I wondered if there was a better way to change the focus of a person so it wouldn't pick up that no. 1 was my husband

Edited by Badger

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I don't understand what you mean by a line above the tree. Are you talking about the Title of the tree? You can also change that on the Setting page.

 

If you are going to send people a GEDCOM, how to you expect they will be able to view it? Whatever software they import it into will determine what they see. But I think your concern is that your husband is listed first in the GEDCOM. It looks like TMG writes names to the GEDCOM in the order they were entered in the database. As I recall, the order of the people in the GEDCOM is not supposed to make any difference according to GEDCOM specs, so TMG just uses the order they were entered.

 

I think what you propose would change that order if it's important to you to do that.

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So here's the story, recently at a family gathering a few people said they would like my collection of 400 "Clark" family members so they can start a tree for themselves on ancestry. I produced a gedcom file, by way of a Focus group with the earliest Clark as the Focus person and to include all descendants and spouses. Now, I assumed incorrectly, that my earliest Clark would be the main Person on the tree - which I've called "Clark". I then created a new Ancestry free account, uploaded the gedcom and my husband appeared as 1st person. Not a problem, thought I, I'll just change the Home person to my earliest Clark, which I did. So now the Tree is called Clark. I then can look at Earliest Clarks daughter, Margaret, then look at tree again. The line above the tree reads thus:

 

Harry Green : Earliest Clark : Margaret Clark

 

This being the root. So really no one will want Harry Green as the root of the Clark family tree although I do want Harry Green along with all other Clark spouses to show on the Tree. I have produced a gedcom before with myself as the focus person, but in this case I only want 400 people out of the 1000 I have on TMG.

 

Picky..I know, but I just think if you have a Clark family Tree, Harry Green should not be there, right at the top.

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A GEDCOM has no focus person. Individuals in a GEDCOM are in the order of their ID numbers. You can't make any particular person the focus person of a GEDCOM since there is no such thing.

 

If you want some person first in a GEDCOM (and this is likely the person Ancestry displays by default), that person needs to have the lowest ID number of the people included in the GEDCOM. You can change the ID numbers in TMG to accomplish that.

 

Tools / Renumber People

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I have produced the gedcom from People in a Focus group and have previously produced a gedcom from a Focus person. I'm working on removing my husband and re-entering him within a new project in TMG then at least I will be the lowest ref. number so I will them be at the root of this pesky line in Ancestry.

 

But then the other problem, on uploading said gedcom to new project, TMG has produced a extra person call "Submitter Name" which i can't delete unless I "Manually modify the Source record" ???

 

I really thought I was going to have an easy day today :no:

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Hi Badger,

 

I haven't created an Ancestry tree but I suspect that Terry is correct. Ancestry probably uses the very first person found in the GEDCOM file (which will be the person with the lowest TMG ID number in the file) as the "title" person of the tree. In my opinion that is a fault of Ancestry not to give the submitter an option to change that.

 

However, you can fix that in TMG. Try the following steps in TMG:

 

Go to whomever is ID #1 in your database.

Under the "Tools" menu, at the bottom of the fifth group, select "Renumber People".

The default will be to renumber this one person to a number one greater than the largest ID number in use in the database. OK that action.

Now go to the "earliest Clark" person's record.

Under the "Tools" menu, at the bottom of the fifth group, select "Renumber People".

Choose to renumber this one person to become ID #1.

Now "File//Maintenance//Optimize" the TMG database.

 

That should be all that is needed.

 

Now do your Export of the GEDCOM. Your "earliest Clark" person now will be output at the first person in the GEDCOM file, with an ID of '1'. I am guessing that Ancestry now will accept that person as the "title" person of the GEDCOM tree.

 

As for the "Submitter Name", that name comes from the TMG "Researcher" name in "Preferences // Current Project Options // General". If that field is blank, TMG inserts the default name of "Submitter Name". You can enter your own name in Preferences so TMG will output it in GEDCOM as the submitter, or you can delete that name in the exported GEDCOM file. The GEDCOM file is simply a text file. Open the file with Notepad. Near the very beginning of the file you will find two lines:

0 @SUB1@ SUBM
1 NAME Submitter Name

Delete those two lines, and only those two lines, and see whether Ancestry will accept a file with an unknown submitter.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Sucess !!!!

 

Many thanks one and all, I now have my Clark's all in a gedcom, successfully loaded onto Ancestry with Harry Green just another spouse. The renumbering thing did it, I didn't know you could do that.

 

Again, problem solved on this forum, you guys are the greatest. :clap:

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Actually, Ancestry doesn't assume a title, but rather requires you to enter one. There is an option to change it later if desired.

 

I'm not sure, but I think Badger is referring to a bar above some screens that list the names of several people in the site. It's not clear how those names are selected, but on my tree the first one is in fact the person with the lowest ID#, followed by the "Home" person I set for that tree in Ancestry, followed by the person with second lowest ID#, followed by someone who I have no idea how he was selected. These do not appear to be under user control.

 

Ancestry probably uses the very first person found in the GEDCOM file (which will be the person with the lowest TMG ID number in the file) as the "title" person of the tree. In my opinion that is a fault of Ancestry not to give the submitter an option to change that.

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