Hi Helen, > I want to split my family file to send him our common relatives. I am > able to make a file of my mother's ancestors and another file of my > 3rd Great Grandfather's descendents. But my problem is that I can only > make these files of the direct line which does not include my third > cousins etc. My grandfather was one of thirteen children so there > are a good number of lateral spouses, children etc that I cannot move > into a new file.
One method I've used recently is to: 1. save a copy of my whole file with a new name (usually the surname of the common ancestor and the day's date), and work with that (which means you don't make any accidental or unwanted changes to your main file). 2. select a Tag that isn't in use. 3. unlink the branches that I don't want to include. For example, if I want to include my partner but not his family, I unlink him from his parents - that takes care of his whole side of the family in one step. (Note, I haven't found any connections between his family and mine, so I don't know what implications there might be if you have that.) 4. when you're done unlinking, go to the Tree Finder (View > Tree Finder) and Refresh the trees. Identify which branch is the one you WANT to keep and don't touch it. For all the others, select the correct Tag number, click on the name shown for a tree you don't want (which is everything but the one tree you are keeping), then click on the button "Tag the Entire Tree of the Highlighted Individual". Repeat until you've done that for all the trees EXCEPT the one you're keeping. If you do accidentally tag the wrong tree, untag everyone (in Advanced Tagging - Edit > Tag Records, or <Ctrl><T>) and start this step again. 5. go to Advanced Deleting (Tools > Advanced Deleting), set the correct Tag number, then click on the Apply button. It's up to you whether you keep the box "Confirm Each Deletion" ticked or not - in this exercise I tend to be working with a lot of deletions and it's going to be tedious to confirm each one AND I know I'm working with a copy file and it isn't a big deal to start again if I make a mistake, so I uncheck it. Be very careful with that! (Yes, I have had to start again from scratch once or twice, LOL!! That's why you work with a copy of your file.) 6. Look through the remaining names to see if you have missed any residual branches that you want to remove, and go through the steps again to unlink and delete. Now you've got a file containing only the people you wanted to include. If the family I want to extract is relatively simple (it's usually a starting ancestor and all his descendants and their spouses), then this isn't the method I use (I'll use a Focus Group instead), but it's handy when you want something a little more tricky as you have complete control over who you include and don't include, and they don't have to confirm to any rules that the computer understands. Above all else, do a backup before doing anything, and make sure you're working with the COPY file before taking each step. It would be horrible to discover you've just deleted most of your people from your main working file! Hope this helps. :-) Kind Regards, Wendy Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
