Carefully, Make lots of backups during the process so you can go back and start over if things get too messed up.
First I would examine each file separately to get an idea of how well they conform to "your" standards for things like Master Locations, Sourcing, Events etc. If one or both files do not meet your standards do the clean up in the individual files first. This will help standardize things for the next step. Do you know how much duplication there may be in the two files? The greater the number of duplicates the more likely things can get messed up. If there is no duplication then the process is fairly simple since you can simply import one file into the other. If there is a lot of duplication then you will have to merge the duplicate people and that is the source of possible errors. Open one of the files and then do a check for duplicates, selecting the second file as the source for the check. Tools > Compare two files for duplicates. If you are LDS and both files have been processed in New.FamilySearch there is a special duplicate search that compares the AFNs to find duplicates. If not then the Normal Duplicate Search tab should be used. When duplicates are found you can tag the people in one or both files with the same or different numbers. You can also edit the person in either file, that might be useful to fix minor differences. (Be sure the tag number is not used in either file). When the comparison is complete you can search each file for people with the tag you used and get a count of the number of duplicate candidates. Having done this you are now ready to import one file into the other. File > Import From > Legacy File On the import screen I strongly suggest that you have Legacy renumber the RINs and MRINs in the incoming file. Use numbers that are considerably larger than those used in the destination file. For example if there are 5000 people and 1700 marriages in the destination file have Legacy start the RINs for the incoming file at 10,000 and MRINs at 5,000. This will help differentiate the source file people. The final step is the merge of duplicates. Legacy should offer to take you to this step once the import is completed. Brian Customer Support Millennia Corporation [email protected] http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com -- On 19/10/2012 21:35, michsgen wrote: > I have to combine two family trees. How do I do this without creating > another huge mess, lol!? 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 Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
