Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 01:57:31 +0100
Peter Bolsom wrote:
>> To give an example - I have a existing Joseph F with a spouse Sarah ??? and several children and their descendants. I have now discovered that Sarah ??? is in fact Sarah F who is also already on the tree. If I click on 'link to existing spouse' I create 2 spouses for Joseph. Simon tells me that in order to remove Sarah ??? and transfer her children to Sarah F I have to do a merge, but I just can't get this to work.(I have followed Chapter 13).
Sorry this is rather a while back, so it may be history by now. What I actually said was:
>> What you need to do is effectively to merge these 2 records into one. To do this, you need to copy all the data from one record into the other record, and then delete the one you no longer want. It doesn't matter which way round you do it, but I would keep the one that has the most data in it now; so that you have fewer changes to make.
Yes you are *effectively* merging these 2 records, but you have to do it manually. FH does not have a facility to automatically merge 2 records for you. The Merge/Compare facility in Chapter 13 is used for merging and comparing entire GEDCOM files.
Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer
Ron
> > When I load the chart I get a message telling me that it is too large and > that it will not print correctly, I can see the chart on one page and > print the same chart in FTM no problem. >
This can happen if you are running very large diagrams and are running Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME. The problem is actually caused by a limitation of the Windows operating system itself. It should only happen with very large diagrams, and it is far less likely to happen with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I haven't actually tested this problem on Windows 2000, but I have looked at it quite a bit on Windows XP, and I have never been able to make it happen under XP, even with huge diagrams. So if you have a machine running Windows XP, you should try it on that. I understand that FTM doesn't have this problem. Well, fair enough. But my impression is that FTM is also less ambitious in what it tries to do with diagrams, which is probably how it manages to get round this problem.
The number of pages in the diagram is not significant. It is the actual size of the diagram in 'diagram units' that is important. Diagram units don't correspond to real world units like feet and inches. They are if you like 'virtual' measurements used by Windows. Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME (the operating systems based on the original Windows code in other words) are 16-bit in this respect, whereas Windows 2000 and Windows XP are 32-bit. When you consider that sizes double every time you add one extra bit, the maximum size has been doubled 16 times in XP as compared to 95/98/ME. So I doubt if you will hit any limits there.
Theoretically you could try to work around the problem by adjusting the diagram dimensions in the Diagram Options dialog, but I wouldn't bother if I were you. Unless you're fairly close to the limit, it probably won't help.
Incidentally, the limits are almost invariably hit by very wide diagrams. Tall and narrow diagrams almost never cause problems.
If you're wondering what I mean by a very large diagram, I have just opened an All Relatives diagram with 38 generations, displaying a total of 1,933 nodes (i.e. boxes). That is pretty wide at its widest point. But I have had no problems with that, even under Windows 98, so for my purposes 'very large' means larger than that.
Best wishes
Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer
* Merging two people
Merging two people
Thanks, I tried this and ended up completely hung on XP Pro then I got two sets of data which validated correctly and then hung again
All very strange as when I'd recovered I had a set of children without parents but I reckon if I delete and put them back where they belong it will all be sorted OK (hopefully)
All very strange as when I'd recovered I had a set of children without parents but I reckon if I delete and put them back where they belong it will all be sorted OK (hopefully)
Merging two people
is now supported directly in 2.2
Merging two people
I just received from a relation what was said to be some corrections to my records. My file is of 872 individuals and 287 families, and this new GEDCOM file was of 96 individuals and 27 families. There were only two or three new individuals in the new file, which seemed to be in GEDCOM 4.0.
Most of the records were of the same individuals as mine with some minor corrections, but the older GEDCOM came up with some strange note and update fields, even after validation, which had to be discarded of course.
I really thought that merging would not be very difficult, but (after a couple of tries and reread of the manual) worked perfectly.
The only advice I have is to work carefully and understand what effect selecting fields to discard and retain will have. Existing people are then really not a problem. You have to be sure what record you wish to keep.
Most of the records were of the same individuals as mine with some minor corrections, but the older GEDCOM came up with some strange note and update fields, even after validation, which had to be discarded of course.
I really thought that merging would not be very difficult, but (after a couple of tries and reread of the manual) worked perfectly.
The only advice I have is to work carefully and understand what effect selecting fields to discard and retain will have. Existing people are then really not a problem. You have to be sure what record you wish to keep.
Merging two people
Merge records was added to FH in Version 2.2