ID Renumbering

[Lee39 0]

What is the safest way to renumber all the people in my current data set? When I was in TMG beginner mode, I started with myself at #1, my father at #2, my mother at #3, my maternal grandfather at #4, and my maternal grandmother at #5. Since I was new to TMG, I did not bother with trying to change the order of the ID numbers. Now, I would like to renumber the people in my data set, starting with my maternal grandfather -- because this particular data set is actually about him, his descendents, and some of his ancestors. I want to start with my grandfather at #1, his wife (my grandmother) at #2, and then his children (my mother, aunts, and uncles) from #3 to #9.

[Terry Reigel 0]

You can re-number them, one person at a time, using Tools > Renumber people. If necessary, first renumber the people currently using those numbers to currently unused numbers.

 

But other than the first few people, a standard numbering system doesn't work anyway, as there are extra spouses, parents of them, siblings of ancestors, etc. that don't fit in any simple numeric numbering system.

[John Cardinal 0]

It might be easier to put a number in the reference field that shows the relationship to your maternal grandfather. You can do that by hand by editing the field for each person. For people who aren't directly related or for whom numbering isn't important, you can leave the reference field empty.

 

If you like the idea of using the reference field, but you don't want to set the value by hand, there are ways to automate some of the process. My TMG Utility program has a facility to set the reference field for a set of people using an external file. Basically, TMG Utility processes the external file as follows: it reads an ID number and the reference field value, assigns the value to the person indicated by the ID, and then repeats that process until all the entries in the external file have been processed.

 

You can create the external file by hand, but even better, you may be able to create it using a TMG report. Either way, it's usually faster and easier to create the extenal file than it is to edit the reference field manually via TMG.

 

Read about the "Set Person Field" feature in TMG Utility here:

 

http://www.johncardinal.com/tmgutil/setpersonfield.htm

 

Set Person Field has multiple variations. The one you want is Set Field from File.

 

Hope this helps.

[martin tolley 0]

For what it's worth I wouldn't renumber anybody. I've found it much more useful to keep the TMG generated number. Although the numbers don't show family relations in a sequential way, what happens when you've got it all sorted and then find someone new who's related to the line? In my family I also have a remarkable lack of creativity with given names - 29 Richards, 22 Edwards, and Marthas too numerous to mention, etc, many of who are alive at the same time. I've found it very useful with census entries, BMD certificates etc to edit the scanned images and put a title on the image which incorporates the name and the unique ID number. The file is then saved with the name and ID as part of the title, which makes finding them again a whole lot easier.

[Lee39 0]

You can re-number them, one person at a time, using Tools > Renumber people. If necessary, first renumber the people currently using those numbers to currently unused numbers.

 

But other than the first few people, a standard numbering system doesn't work anyway, as there are extra spouses, parents of them, siblings of ancestors, etc. that don't fit in any simple numeric numbering system.

 

You have a good point, Terry. Even if I do re-number the first dozen or so of my blood relatives, as I add new non-related people -- for example, spouses of my blood relatives -- TMG will automatically give ID numbers to them and put them in an undesirable sequence with the other people in my data set.

[Lee39 0]

It might be easier to put a number in the reference field that shows the relationship to your maternal grandfather. You can do that by hand by editing the field for each person. For people who aren't directly related or for whom numbering isn't important, you can leave the reference field empty.

 

John, your reference field idea is a good one, but I think I'll leave the ID numbers in their current order. Thanks for your suggestion, though.

[John Cardinal 0]

Lee,

 

That was my intention... that you leave the ID numbers alone. All numbering systems have limitations and so I think it's best to let the TMG IDs fall as they may and use the reference field for a genealogically-relevant number. You could also use the memo field of an event to store a number.

[retsof 0]

I had some set numbers, but have found a couple of times that the system had a mind of its own and changed radio buttons to renumber the whole dataset, even though I only wanted to renumber one person.

 

What happened? This is a large database of over 484,000 entries, and I am still combining duplicates. There were a lot of gaps. When the database was freshly renumbered, IT THEN HAD FASTER ACCESS. Perhaps some of the internal database ID key tables were smaller if there weren't a lot of gaps, and the disk didn't have to bang around searching for numbers farther removed in the database and widely scattered. The database had previously been freshly optimized, and this was a speed improvement beyond anything optimization could provide.

 

If you don't want the numbers to move, all gaps with smaller number have to be plugged with some data.

[retsof 0]

I tend to adjust my the ID numbers of my own close direct line ancestors to match the reference numbers ... UP TO THE SIZE OF THE DATABASE (ID number given for an add default) because I refer to them so much.

Others, both direct and indirect can fall where they may. The TMG Ahnentafel report always makes a handy reference.

Edited June 5, 2010 by retsof