Large Project to Data Sets

[hollyflewin 0]

Experience - Lurker - Not much real-time experience in the program. Good computer skills

 

I have a large project, everyone is lumped into one data set.

I think I would feel better if it was broken down into smaller data sets.

What's the best process for this?

Is this realistic?

 

Thanks

HF

[Terry Reigel 0]

I have a large project, everyone is lumped into one data set.

I think I would feel better if it was broken down into smaller data sets.

What's the best process for this?

In a word, don't.

 

If you break down into separate data sets:

 

- You have to manually replicate all custom tag types, source types, styles, etc. in each data set.

 

- You cannot link the people in separate data sets, which means you cannot include them in the same ancestor and descendant charts and reports.

 

- There is no performance advantage, as all the data is loaded in your system all the time anyway.

 

Better, in my view, to use accents to keep track of various lines by color coding. See the article on Accents on my website (link below) and the linked article on "Related-by" flags for some ideas on various ways you can do that.

 

But, if you still want to do it, the first thing is to be very clear on exactly why you want to do so. Then, be very clear on who goes in each data set - including what happens to spouses, siblings, ancestors of spouses, witnesses, and on and on. Only then can you decide the best way to identify those people who you want in each data set, using filters, the Focus Group, or by selecting them in the Project Manager.

 

Once you have done that, you can use the Secondary Output of the List of People report to copy them to a new data set, or you can use the Copy or Move functions to do it.

[Roy_Delos_Reyes 0]

Depends on how you define "realistic".

 

Breaking down into smaller datasets can be fine if:

1) each dataset will not contain persons, sources,places, citations, contained in any of the other datasets

2) each dataset will not contain custom toolbars, styles, sources, etc contained in other datasets.

 

If any dataset contains info contained in ant other it will mean double entry to maintain both set.

 

When I started I thought about this a lot and concluded there was no real upside to smaller datasets and a great downside to it so went with one main dataset in one project.

[hollyflewin 0]

- You cannot link the people in separate data sets, which means you cannot include them in the same ancestor and descendant charts and reports.

 

Right there answers my question. Thanks for insight!