ftm 2005

[jozy]

Have this as my main tree programme. I seem to have made a big blunder :(somehow/where. I'm hoping someone can help me to sort it out, short of deleting the whole thing and starting again.

The problem is this, I have 3 versions of my tree all stored on ftm, but none are complete. Somehow I have maternal and paternal names, then Hubbys maternal name. The info on each is slightly different, i.e. with vastly different numbers of ancestors, or more facts added. None are complete.

I think I know what I've done to cause this, when working on a particular branch, I've saved under that name :o.

Question 1. Can I amalgamate them in to one tree on ftm and if so how? (in idiots language please.)

Also, I've got several children that I linked incorrectly. I can not get the children to all appear with the correct parent, only get them as seperate familie views with the relevent spouse attached, i.e I have 3 children but on one view with first hubby have 2 and on other view present marriage have 1.

Question 2. How can I show all 3 of my children on the family view at the same time, again without starting again?

Please help, i'm getting nowhere fast.

[Elaine ..Spain]

The first important thing you need to do before anything else is to back up all three trees just so you can revert to them should anything go wrong during the merging process! :(

What you then need to do is to merge the trees. There are some simple instructions, together with some valuable screen shots, on the Family Tree Maker Online Help Centre at the following link:
Answer

I don't think I could explain it any better than they have done so will leave you to see if you can follow the instructions. Come back if you are stuck.

You will need to do the merge twice. Start with tree no.1 and merge tree no. 2 into it. Then reopen this file and merge tree no.3 into it.

I would wait until you have done your merging before trying to sort out the relationship problems as these might sort themself out with the merging - on the other hand they might not! :o Come back after the merging and I'll see if I can help with the other problems if they still exist.

[jozy]

Elaine,

Many, many thanks.

It seems to have worked fine. I now have one tree with 600+ family members as opposed to 3 trees with something like 1,000 members between them. All the duplicated individuals are merged, so I'm happy with that. I knew there had to be an easy way to do it but was not able to see what and how and was too afraid to try without advice.

Now for part 2 please, I still need to view my self on 2 seperate family views to see all 3 of my children, so where do I look for info on correcting this?

Thanks again for your help.

[Elaine ..Spain]

OK - first thing again is to back up your tree before you start fiddling with it! Very important.

Then you need to find out where the problem lies. At some point you have probably entered one of the children with just you as the parent, rather than you and your OH as parents. Select each child in turn and do a relationship check against you and your OH and find out which one, or ones, say anything other than natural child.

Relationship check - go to TOOLS - RELATIONSHIP CALCULATOR - and select the names.

Presumably you will find something that is not correct with one of the children which you will need to fix by detaching them and reattaching them

How to detach a child
Answer

and How to attach a child
Answer

It is not as complicated to do as it might look - and hopefully it will solve the problem. If it doesn't then ask again!

[jozy]

many thanks again, will try and do this a bit late, have got to go and have some food now so will try afterwards. may not get back on line until tommorrow but will let you know how I managed.

Once again thanks.