Splitting off a person and his ancestors

[Jim Rassette 0]

Hi

 

Can someone give me all the step by step details and commands of how to copy a person and his ancestors and their families out of one existing project and dataset to create another dataset and/or project that can be merged into another existing project.

 

I have tried several things to no avail. I did create a focus group in the project and dataset that I want the people extracted from but I am at a loss after that. Everything I have read so far does not detail the exact commends to use or in what order from beginning to end.

 

I thought I had seen this discussion several years ago.

 

Thanks,

 

 

[Terry Reigel 0]

Jim,

 

If you have everyone collected in a Focus Group you have the hard part done. Now you just need to follow a few steps to copy them and merge them into the other Project. You can't copy people directly from one Project to another directly, so it takes several steps. Broadly, here is what you have to do:

 

1. Use the Secondary output of the List of People report to copy the people into a new temporary Project. Use the Focus Group as the "Subjects."

 

2. Merge that temporary Project into your target Project. That will place them in a new Data Set within that Project.

 

3. Merge the new Data Set with the existing Data Set in that project. Be sure to choose "A" and "B" so that the new Data Set is "Unchanged" to preserve the ID#s of the existing people in the existing Data Set.

Alternatively, you can Copy all the people from the new Data Set to the existing one.

 

4. Delete the new Data Set from the Project.

 

Detailed instructions for doing the merging can be found in the article on Merging Projects and Data Sets on my website. Using the Copy Persons command is described in my article on Copying or Moving People Between Data Sets.

[Jim Rassette 0]

Hi Terry,

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I still have three problems.

 

1. I did create a focus group but did not get all the people I expected. No other children of the subject's ancestors or other spouses of the ancestors even though it pulled the other marriage events. I marked descendants for one generation but that seemed to only get the subject's children (which I do need). I need at least all the spouses and all the children of every ancestor and ideally the children's spouses. It has been a while but I seem to remember that was straight forward in the PAF genealogy program.

 

2. I can find no "Copy Person" command as mentioned in your item 3. I did read your website articles before I wrote the first post but could not piece it all together.

 

3. I had trouble with creating a new temporary dataset from the list of people, especially naming the new project. I ended up making a new project using the file command and selecting it and saying to overwrite it with the secondary output of the list of people report.

 

Thanks again,

[Terry Reigel 0]

1. I did create a focus group but did not get all the people I expected. No other children of the subject's ancestors or other spouses of the ancestors even though it pulled the other marriage events. I marked descendants for one generation but that seemed to only get the subject's children (which I do need). I need at least all the spouses and all the children of every ancestor and ideally the children's spouses. It has been a while but I seem to remember that was straight forward in the PAF genealogy program.

 

Jim,

 

To get spouses and children of ancestors, and their spouses takes several steps using the Add Others function on the right side of the Focus Group. To do that you need to select everyone already in the FG, which you do with the Select All button.

 

1. To add spouses of Ancestors: Select All. Then in the Add Other box check only Spouses and click the Add Others button.

 

2. To add other children of Ancestors: Select All. Then in the Add Other box check only Descendants for one generation, and click the Add Others button.

 

3. To add the spouses of the children: Select All. Then in the Add Other box check only Spouses and click the Add Others button.

 

 

2. I can find no "Copy Person" command as mentioned in your item 3. I did read your website articles before I wrote the first post but could not piece it all together.

 

It's on the Add menu.

 

3. I had trouble with creating a new temporary dataset from the list of people, especially naming the new project. I ended up making a new project using the file command and selecting it and saying to overwrite it with the secondary output of the list of people report.

 

That will work, but you should be able enter the name it in the Secondary Output tab of Options once you check the Create New Project button. What happened when you tried that?

[Jim Rassette 0]

Terry,

 

Thanks again for the information. I will try the focus group suggestions later tonight or tomorrow. I must be getting old and senile to have missed the copy Person(s) button. I have never tried it before. As I remember I had to type in a name because what came up was a name and volume from my old computer so I had to browse to a valid folder. When I typed in a project name I kept getting an invalid name error. So then I created an empty project with the New Project command and then browsed to it and selected it.

 

Thanks,

[Jim Rassette 0]

Hi Terry,

 

I tried your suggestions with varying results that I didn't understand.

 

1. I took the focus group I had started with the ancestors of my gr-gr-grandfather and using your suggestions I added the spouses of the ancestors and then in the next step I added the children of the ancestors. When I looked at the focus group list it appeared that I had what I wanted. However, when I ran the list of the people in the focus group and created the new project and dataset, I only got the original 102 ancestors in the new project and not the 250+ that I added with the last two steps.

 

2. I then deleted the people in the focus group along with the new project and dataset and started over. Creating a new focus group and doing all three steps before I saved the focus group. This time when I ran the list report and created the new dataset and project I got most of the focus group but still not all, missing less than 20 this time.

 

3. Starting with a new focus group again and following your steps, this time I tried to copy the people from the focus group to a new dataset in the same project using the "copy persons" command. I got better results but was still miising a few people from the focus group.

 

I also realized I was missing the some ancestors from wives of the children that I wanted. I think that is my fault in not trying to pull ancestors again after I selected pulled Spouses. I will be experimenting more over the next few dys until I get a better move to a new dataset so I can merge it with an existing project.

 

Thanks again,

[Terry Reigel 0]

Hi Terry,

 

I tried your suggestions with varying results that I didn't understand.

 

1. I took the focus group I had started with the ancestors of my gr-gr-grandfather and using your suggestions I added the spouses of the ancestors and then in the next step I added the children of the ancestors. When I looked at the focus group list it appeared that I had what I wanted. However, when I ran the list of the people in the focus group and created the new project and dataset, I only got the original 102 ancestors in the new project and not the 250+ that I added with the last two steps.

It sounds like you used a saved focus group rather than the current one. There is no need to save the focus group unless you plan to use it again later. Just specify "current focus group."

 

 

2. I then deleted the people in the focus group along with the new project and dataset and started over. Creating a new focus group and doing all three steps before I saved the focus group. This time when I ran the list report and created the new dataset and project I got most of the focus group but still not all, missing less than 20 this time.

Have you looked at the missing people? Are they really in the FG and not in the new project, or are you just counting "people" -- remember that a FG is actually a list of names, so a person can appear more than once under different names.

 

 

3. Starting with a new focus group again and following your steps, this time I tried to copy the people from the focus group to a new dataset in the same project using the "copy persons" command. I got better results but was still miising a few people from the focus group.

 

I also realized I was missing the some ancestors from wives of the children that I wanted. I think that is my fault in not trying to pull ancestors again after I selected pulled Spouses. I will be experimenting more over the next few dys until I get a better move to a new dataset so I can merge it with an existing project.

 

You didn't mention ancestors of wives so I didn't include them in my description. Yes, to get them you need to run "Ancestors" again.

[Gene Fuehrer 0]

I am trying to copy a focus group into a new project also. I don't understand what is meant by Using the secondary output.

thanks

Gene

[Terry Reigel 0]

Gene,

 

It is the Secondary Output of the List of People report that you are looking for.

 

After you have the Focus Group populated as you want, open the List of People report. I the top half of the report definition screen, select Focus Group.

 

Click the Options button at the bottom, and then click on the Secondary Output tab. Check the box for "Create New Project" and enter the name of the new project.

 

Close Options and run the report. After it is run it will ask if you want to create the new Project.

[Gene Fuehrer 0]

Thank you very much. I have been trying to make this happened for many hours.

Gene

[Terry Reigel 0]

You're welcome, Gene.