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Importing a select subset of a GEDCOM/TMG file

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I received a very large (10,000) name GEDCOM file from a distant relative. It appears to be primarily an extract of numerous Ancestry.com files and trees, and as such contains a lot of what I would consider nonsense (e.g. my g/grandfather listed as a "Doctor" when he was a telegrapher, and his middle initial as "S" when his middle name was Taylor). She has added details for her family that is more reliable, and I want to include that in my files. 

I imported my relative's GEDCOM file to a new TMG 9.05 database, although it appears the GEDCOM version was later than 5.5, as the import threw hundreds of errors. However, the import worked, and I have families properly set up after a quick QC check.

As I mentioned, I wanted to load just her families' data into my master database as a starting point for seriously fleshing out that part of the family with sources, etc. I don't use export much (if at all), so doing the export is new to me. I tried to export (GEDCOM) the key descendant, and of course only got him. I set up a focus group and exported that, and only got the key ancestor again. When I exported the focus group, I limited his ancestors to 1, and maxed out the descendants, which did not help.

Given that I only want 100 or so families out of the 10,000 names she gave me,  am I going about this the right way? If I am, what's going wrong with the export wherein I only get 1 person? Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks.

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Assuming that all names of interest are in a focus group and that focus group is current...

1) Use the List of People to create a new project with the secondary output under Options. The subject of the report should be 'Focus Group'.

2) Import the data set in that new project into your main project. You now have your main project with the original data set and the new data set.

I would clean up the new data set before merging it into your main data set.

3) Merge the new data set into your main data set.

At this point, I'd delete the new data set to keep things simple.

Now you can merge any people in your main project that need merging and do whatever additional cleanup required.

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I would suggest an alternate method, which to me produces much better results because all the data you add to your project is entered according to your standards. I would:

1. Open your regular Project as normal.

2. Open the new Project in a separate instance of TMG. The easy way to do that is to find that Project at the bottom of the File menu in TMG and select it. When asked whether you want to close your current Project say No.

3. You now have two instances of TMG open, one with each Project. Arrange the two main TMG windows so you can see the essential parts of both.

4. Navigate to a person whose data you want to transfer in the Project that contains the imported GEDCOM, and create the same person if not already there in your regular Project. Open each Tag that contains data you want to transfer in the imported Project, and use Windows Copy and Paste to transfer each data item to the corresponding Tag in your regular Project. 

5. Continue until you have transferred all the data for that person, then move to a new Person and repeat. Continue until all the data you want to transfer is entered in your regular Project.

You will probably want to create some method for tracking which people's data you have already transferred. You could create a custom Flag in the imported Project, and set an Accent color based on that. Reset it for each person as you finish with them so the Accent color changes. Alternately, you could create a list of the people involved with the List of People report, and either print it and cross off people as you finish with them, or send it to a word processor and mark them off there.

 

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Thanks for the help, much appreciated. I was able to extract the focus group, and am now in the process of cleaning it up (Ancestry.com, need I say more???) before I import it to my master DB.

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