FTM question please

[Chrissie Smiff]

That sounds good Elaine, apart from one thing. When you go to unlink tree it says -

Unlink this tree from Family Tree Maker. This action does not delete either tree, but severs the link between them.
Warning! This action cannot be undone!

I was thinking of doing that before but that warning put me off.

[Elaine ..Spain]

It's obviously linked to another computer because the message you are getting on your current computer is "not linked to this computer".

You're not going to be able to do anything until you unlink it. As it says - this will NOT delete the tree.

I was going to say "trust me" ... but as I am not there to watch which buttons you are pressing I might get blamed for something you do wrong!!
No seriously, click on the UNLINK - wherever it is linked to we are not finding it at the moment, so nothing is lost.

[Chrissie Smiff]

Will do and I promise to press the right buttons :D

[Chrissie Smiff]

Wheyheeeeeeee thank your lucky stars you are miles away or I would kiss you You were right, it was the gedcom I was seeing. I unlinked my Ancestry tree, then renamed it. Went back in and downloaded it and lo and behold - photo and everything appeared by magic:D Thank you Thank you Thank you. You must have the patience of Job and I really appreciate you sticking with me.

Dare I ask one last question please:o Do you know if it's possible and if so how to put part of a tree on disc?
I can't do it by separating the link from me to the ancestor (as I think you mentioned before) because it's for a half cousin twice removed. So his part of the tree wouldn't be included. It seems as though everything like the ancestor charts etc that I try to print out (understandably) prints as though it's for me. So I imagine any attempt to separate and make a disc would be the same?

[Elaine ..Spain]

Phew - we got there at last. Just make sure you know whether you are on a manual or auto sync - and if manual then make sure you do it from time to time whenever you have added new info.

Re separating part of a tree. Yes it is possible.
The first question I would ask - does your contact have a family tree program in which to open the information you would send him (which would be in GEDCOM format) - or would it be easier to do it in a report form (text)?

No rush to answer because I am off to bed soon - but will happily help tomorrow.

[Chrissie Smiff]

No Elaine, he is very 'green' about genealogy and I don't think he is even terrible good with computers (says the techie expert). We are all meeting up (with his wife and my hubby) next Tuesday for lunch at a pub and I am trying to get as much for him to look at as possible. I have typed up a two page ancestor report working down from our Gt Gt Grandfather, with brief details about siblings etc. I thought it would be nice for him to be able to see an actual 'tree' though. I have tried printing off the reports on FTM but they don't include any siblings or anything and they might confuse him anyway. So my other idea was a disc. He asked if I could draw a tree, but to be honest it's rather large and I hate writing them up. I always end up short of room :D

I don't know whether you remember, but it's the man that I rang a few weeks ago. His son has a tree on ancestry but he had linked the wrong Gt grandmother (Grandmother for the man I rang) and I knew for a fact that she was actually an ancestor of mine. His grandmother had registered my Gt Grandmothers death and he recognised the address when I told him. I had twice tried to contact his son through Ancestry without success, so I followed the tree and worked out who his father was. Then I traced his address and telephone number and here we are a few weeks later

There's no rush, any suggestions would be very welcome though.
Night night

[Guest]

glad you are sorted but I just went to my FTM and its now saying Sync error and unable to validate ancestry linked tree ? dont know whats going on.
Plus I was looking at hints and got my own tree which was now public ?

[Chrissie Smiff]

Oh dear Val, it's so frustrating isn't it. Can I suggest that you go to Ancestry, then if you click on trees 'Create and Manage Trees' comes up at the bottom. Click on this and it will show all your trees. Then you can see what each one says and click on the Manage tree of the one you are interested in and see what it says.

[Guest]

I already did that Chrissie I just have my original tree on there I got rid of the new one which had lots missing anyway.
Dont think I'll bother syncing.

[Chrissie Smiff]

I assume that you changed your tree back to Private?

Your problem may be the same as the one I had Val. If so, it was because I was now on a different (old) laptop to the one I had originally merged on. Under Elaine's guidance I went to Ancestry and un-synced the tree. Then I opened up FTM and asked it to import tree from Ancestry and imported it again.

[Elaine ..Spain]

Val, it might be worth doing the same as Chrissie - going to your Ancestry tree and unlink it from wherever it's currently linked.

Then open FTM and download to your computer - following instructions in post #29.
Nothing to lose!

Once it's done opt for the manual sync rather than automatic - and make sure you stick to just one computer.

[Elaine ..Spain]

Chrissie - re printing your tree, email on its way to you.

[Guest]

but will I end up with two trees then ?? I just did some googling and the syncing seems to be a problem for lots of people.

[Elaine ..Spain]

Sorry, thought you had trouble matching up your FTM tree to the Ancestry one.
There has been a lot of problems lately with the sync option - not sure it's high up on Ancestry's "to do" list!

[Guest]

sorry Elaine I should have explained better, and thanks for helping I do appreciate it, you are right my tree is not being recognised by FTM , am afraid to do anything else as it seems to make another tree which I dont want plus it made the extra one public.

[Chrissie Smiff]

Chrissie - re printing your tree, email on its way to you.

Thank you - they are brilliant

sorry Elaine I should have explained better, and thanks for helping I do appreciate it, you are right my tree is not being recognised by FTM , am afraid to do anything else as it seems to make another tree which I dont want plus it made the extra one public.

From the description you gave Val it sounded as though you were having the same problem as me. Are you sure that you aren't on a different computer than the one you were on when you first synced the trees?
I was afraid of ending up with two trees as well, but because I un-synced them first before opening FTM and then downloading it from there it was fine.
I'm not sure what problems the people are having at the moment but mine went in like a dream, complete with photos and everything.

[Guest]

I dont usually use FTM on my laptops Chrissie just on here so dont think that can be my problem? I know I did a clean install on one of the laptops wonder if I installed FTM at the same time ? hmmm shall have a look thanks.