Merging Family Files

[Clark]

After reading everyones great threads on this subject I am still not clear on
how to do it under this scenario. I have two separate trees for two brothers,
James and Thomas. I don't know their parents but have opened a family file
called Unknown (blanK) with the intent of merging the two separate files into
this one new file that will represent their father and later (I hope) I will learn
his name and make the name change. Each brother's file has about 500 names.
Do I merge uaing flags one at a time? Hopefully not.
Thanks all.

Clark

[ttl]

Re: Merging Family Files

There's a lot of ways to do this, but for the sake of discussion, I'd start this way.

First, I'd make a copy of one brother's family file and make that the working file. The original can remain a backup. I'd then import the other brother's family file into the working file. Now you have all the data in one file, and the originals are untouched, and you can go back to them if something horrible happens in the working file (which it probably won't).

At that point, you can start matching and merging in the working file. Ideally, there's not much overlap in the two files and you know where the overlap is. If that's the case, you can go to each overlapping person's family view and drag the duplicate person from the People Sidebar onto them, which will prompt you to confirm the merge. If there's large amounts of overlap, you could try a batch merge instead, and confirm each match as it's presented to you.

Either way, you should just go ahead and try it in the working file, and if something goes wrong, you can start all over again. What's more likely is that you'll just get the hang of it by doing it and you'll be able to move forward with a unified family file when you're done.

[Peter M. Krohn]

Peter M. Krohn

Thank you so much. Your answer helped me solve my problem.

[ttl]

Re: Merging Family Files

Thanks for the feedback!

[pforbes]

Re: Merging Family Files

Tim, would this also apply to a Gedcom?

[ttl]

Re: Merging Family Files

I'm paranoid about backups... for importing a GEDCOM file, I'd go ahead and make the backup for the family file, designate the original or copy family file as a working copy, then use that to import the GEDCOM file and try out the matching and merging. So, yes, it should work in a similar fashion.

[pforbes]

Re: Merging Family Files

Thanks, Tim.