How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

[Nicholas Smith]

Greetings,

Has anyone run into the problem where they have multiple people to whom they are related in more than one way, and have already put those people into Reunion 9, and now find that they need to be there more than once, or somehow connected?

A significant group of early ancestors were connected in more than one way (small gene pool from which to find mates!), and when I initially have 'found' them, I was unaware of their relatedness via another line or lines, to me. Now, I have them in Reunion 9 more than once and would like to connect them, but fear losing Notes (extensive) and other data if I just combine them somehow.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Nicholas

MacBook Pro OS10.8; Safari 6.0.5

DIRECT LINE: Stevens / Stephens (UK > VA, USA > MO); Carter (UK > VA, USA); Tyler (UK > VA, USA), Cordell (UK > VA, USA); Suter (UK > VA, USA); Keltner (Germany > PA > VA > TN > MO, USA)

Also for VA, USA: Beverley, Larkin, Chew, Skipwith, Todd, Terrell, Fleming, Woodson, Keeling, Tarleton, Edwards, Blackwell, Steptoe, Downing, Stringfellow, Asbury, Stapleton, Lindamood, Peters, Cooper, Johnston, and more.

[ttl]

Re: How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

I would recommend you make a backup copy of your family file and experiment with the match and merge feature to combine your duplicates. For what it's worth, this is one area where there's a significant improvement, at least in the user interface, in Reunion 10.

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

I have them in Reunion 9 more than once and would like to connect them

To add to Tim's response: each person should only have one entry in your family file. You don't want to connect different entries; you want to merge them together. One entry per person.

[Nicholas Smith]

Re: How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

To add to Tim's response: each person should only have one entry in your family file. You don't want to connect different entries; you want to merge them together. One entry per person.

Thanks, Tim & Dennis.

At present, I believe this problem applies to about 24 people in my file. Having each each of these people in the family file only one time per person is, of course, my goal.

I will plan to make a back-up file and experiment with the merge process. This, however, creates a new question: if things do not go right, will I be able to just swap family files in and out of Reunion 9, by taking amerced file out and putting a back-up copy in its place?

if I learn anything to help others, I'll report back on it.

Nicholas

[ttl]

Re: How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

This, however, creates a new question: if things do not go right, will I be able to just swap family files in and out of Reunion 9, by taking amerced file out and putting a back-up copy in its place?

When you work on one family file, other family files will not be affected. At the risk of airing dirty laundry, here's a screen shot of a part of my much-needing-cleaning-up personal Reunion Files folder. Any of these files are equally accessible from Reunion. The main issue is keeping straight which files are which... you don't want to start making changes in two different files because you'll have to merge the changes again. However, if you corrupt a file while experimenting, you can abandon it and start over with the untouched copy (after making another backup). It helps if you use more descriptive file names than I did.

[ttl]

Re: How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

Just so you know, the user's manual has a good description of how the match and merge feature works.

[Nicholas Smith]

Re: How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

Just so you know, the user's manual has a good description of how the match and merge feature works.

Tim -

Again, thanks. I do still have a copy of the Reunion User's Manual -- I received it when I bought V.4!

I am guessing that there is a newer version eFile that I should probably download, before asking too many already-answered-in-the-manual questions here. One more question: where do I find the User's Manual?

Thanks

Nicholas

[ttl]

Re: How to safely combine/connect entries for the same person / people?

While in Reunion 9, go to Help in the top menu bar of your display, and select Contents. Type "match merge" (without the quotes) in the search field, and the first hit should be What is Match & Merge. This link brings you pretty close to the top of the match and merge section of the manual.