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lniesen

A fine mess

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Hello,

 

Typical Laurel & Hardy style, I've gotten myself into a fine mess.

 

I have a huge database that comprises my entire family and my husband's as well. I made a copy of it, thinking I would delete some people and use the rest for a specific purpose, and I did indeed delete a lot of people. That plan didn't work out, however, so I turned to other matters.

 

Subsequently, I did a ton of research on one of my family lines and entered it into my database. To my chagrin, I just discovered that I wasn't entering this new research into my "MAIN FILES" database, but rather had inadvertently failed to switch back to "MAIN FILES" from this aborted extra database that I'd created and deleted parts of.

 

I can't stand the idea of entering each individual, along with his/her mates and descendants and all the attached sources and notes, all over again into the "MAIN FILES" database. Is there a realistic way to copy an individual and his/her attachments from this erroneous database over into my actual "MAIN FILES" database? I tried to "copy person" from my project explorer, and the screen offered me the option of copying it into a dataset called "Main" that had been imported back in 2004. I'm sure this was my original import when I got on TMG and I have no idea what's in it. The "dataset" term is confusing to me, because "MAIN FILES" is the only database I know of that is current. What is the difference between my database and a "dataset?" The database is a .pjc file and I have no idea what a dataset is, since it only offers me this one from 2004 that I don't recognize.

 

Can someone help me get un-lost and save me from my own mess?

 

Many thanks,

Len

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Read Terry's article "Projects and Datasets".

http://tmg.reigelridge.com/projects-datasets.htm

 

Start out by renaming the new project and renaming the data set in the new project so that you will not confuse the original and new projects and data sets.Do NOT do anything to your original project at this point. (Each project has only one data set based on your description.)

File / Rename Project

File / Data Set Manager

 

Now you have two projects, the original and the new, which by names and data set names are distinctly different.

 

*** Back up both projects. ***

 

Open your original project. Use File / Merge Projects to merge the new project into your original project. (This process basically copies the data set from the new project into your original project.)

 

Your original project should now have two data sets... the original data set and the data set from the new project. Since you renamed the data set in the new project, the data sets have different names. Check this using File / Data Set Manager.

 

Persons in the original data set have 1:n IDs and persons in the new data set have 2:n IDs.

 

You use Add / Copy Person(s) to copy the new people from the new data set to the original data set. You can do it one at a time or you could add all of the persons in the new data set into a Focus Group and use Add / Copy Person(s) to copy them in one step.

 

After you have copied all new persons to the original data set, you can use the Data Set Manager to delete the new data set from the project.

 

%%%%%%%%%%

 

Since you have backed up, you are protected from mistakes. Move slowly and learn as you work to get the hang of things.

 

Explainer... TMG has only one database. Data sets are just marks for the data in the data tables. Each person and their data are marked with a data set number in the data tables. When you copy a person from one data set to another, what you are doing is to change the data set number for that person and the person's data.

 

Alternative... A more efficient process would be to create a new project with just the added people from the new project. You could create a new flag and mark all of the new people with a flag and use the secondary output option of the List of People report to copy the people with the flag to a new project. You would then use the process described above to get those persons to your original project.

 

More... Using the List of People report, you could probably filter for the Last Edited date and set the flag for all of the new people in one step.

 

If the last edited date idea is viable, I could probably do this entire process for you in about 15 to 20 minutes. All that I'd need would be the two projects and the ID# of the first new person added. The flag could also be set based on ID numbers. There are always multiple ways to get things done in TMG.

 

Ask if you need help.

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Len,

 

Jim has given you excellent advice. As he indicated "Since you have backed up, you are protected from mistakes."

 

As an additional alternative, if you wish to know exactly what changes there are between two backup versions of a data set, this can be done because you have both a "before" and "after" copy of that data set. You can run two Individual Narrative reports, one on each of the versions of that data set, being careful to include all people and all tags and using the identical report options. Select the output for these two reports to be for a word processor (e.g. Word). Now (here's the trick) use the built-in feature of most word processors to "compare" what are expected to be two versions of the same document. Using the word processor's search facility on the comparison document you should be able to locate all additions, deletions, and changes. A bit tedious, but can be done. (Another reason to make periodic backups.)

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Thank you for your reply. I read through the Projects and Data Sets page and now have a tiny bit better understanding - though, honestly, I'm still confused.

 

What I did was just copy the project and make changes to the copied project. These changes go back to May 2, which was the last time I changed my "good" project (the one I intend to keep but which is missing my new inputs). But there is only one data set, or so it appears. If I have both projects open at once, in two different windows, and I look at the data set manager in each window/project, each window/project shows the same data set name, exactly.

 

Are there actually two data sets, one in each project? So if I edit the name of the data set in Project #2 (the copy), it won't affect the name of the data set in Project #1 (the original)?

 

I hope this doesn't make me appear too dumb ... but if the shoe fits....

 

Thank you for your patience!

Len

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The projects are completely independent of one another.

 

A project has a data set and only one if you don't add additional data sets.

 

The copied project started out being completely identical to the original project other than the project name if you gave the new project a new name.

 

Like I said, the first step is to rename the new project and rename the data set in the new project so that the new project and data set can be clearly distinguished from the original project and data set.

 

If the new project already has a name that differs from the original project, then all you need to do is to rename the data set in the new project so that it differs from the name of the data set in the original project.

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"Alternative... A more efficient process would be to create a new project with just the added people from the new project. You could create a new flag and mark all of the new people with a flag and use the secondary output option of the List of People report to copy the people with the flag to a new project. You would then use the process described above to get those persons to your original project.



"More... Using the List of People report, you could probably filter for the Last Edited date and set the flag for all of the new people in one step."



----------------------------------


Jim, I have renamed the projects and datasets and backed both up.



Looking at the project explorer I can tell that my changes go back to May 2 and I can sort them there. Would either/both of the methods you described (merge all, or create a new database and merge) also pick up links to people who were added prior to May 2, and would they also pick up changes made after May 2 to people who existed on/prior to May 2? The new research added people but also modified dates and notes for many who were already in my database prior to the date I made the error.



Thank you so much for your help -


Len


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That makes things much more complicated since people merging will be required for the existing people who were edited once the projects and data sets are merged.

 

Again... Let me deal with the project/data set manipulations and you can focus on cleaning up the final project.

 

You can contact me by email by clicking on the link below...

Jim Byram

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