Family Historian User Group

Hi

This is my first post and, although I use FH5 nearly every day, I don't pretend to understand the program's undoubted finer points so please be gentle with me

I am a volunteer archivist for a family history society and have constructed many, probably unrelated, family trees all focusing on the same (or soundex) surname. As records are moving into the thousand, I'd like to make an overall list of all the individuals of this name such that I can refer back then to see on which tree that person belongs, if that makes any sense. So, to be clear I have, say, ten projects each containing a tree but I want to create a single (external file, say a DB or Excel) list of all individuals of the name of interest. Please.... how do I export a list of individuals, if it's possible?

Cheers
Karen

I suppose it would depend on how often I'd want to do it, but if not too frequently, I think that I'd just export a list of names from each project in turn, then paste that list into an Excel spreadsheet, adding a cell to each row with the name of the project. You could then import that into a database, depending on how you might want to access/process the data.

To export a list of names from each project just create a custom query (maybe use the standard query "All Individuals", save it as a custom query and remove any columns you don't want), then save the result set to a CSV file, open the CSV file with your spreadsheet program, save it as an intermediate spreadsheet file, add the project name column, then copy all this data into your final spreadsheet file.

If you save FH with that custom query in it, it will then be available when you open the rest of your projects.

There are probably ways to automate some or all of this, it depends how often you want to do it, or update it.

Thank you DavidM... sounds like the just the thing. I don't generate names at that prolific a rate and so updating a database would be a very simple manual task. I will give your method a whirl now.

I probably sound very naive but, up to now I have used FH5 simply as storage for data and media; I haven't sought to ask questions of it as you would from any other database.

Thank you again for your help.

Kind Regards
Karen

Karen,
Have you given any thought to what you will do if some of your 'probably unrelated' trees turn out to be connected after all?
The best course then would be to combine the connected projects into a single project using File > Merge/Compare File.

However you don't need to wait until you find a connection. It is possible to hold several unconnected trees (known as Pools) in a single project. Each pool is allocated a number by FH and a column for Pool number can be displayed in the records window. Sorting on the Pool column will bring all records in a single pool together, while sorting on the Individual Record name column brings those with similar names together. This means you can quickly see which Pool an undividual belongs to.

Karen

If you need any more information other than the name take a look at GedXlate it is quite old but it is free and it still works. It reads a gedcom file and then exports whichever fields you select to a CSV, Excel or Access file. I still use it regularly.

I would go along with Lorna's suggestion and merge your 10 separate Projects into one Project with 10 trees.

Then as has been suggested, the Records Window allows you to list Individuals in different orders, either by Surname, or by tree Pool number, etc.

This approach means you don't have to maintain a separate external DB/Excel file, and you can use the FH Query features directly.

I ran exactly such a tree for a One Name Society for 8 years. All the names were in the one project and (from memory) there must have been 30 different trees in it. On the (quite rare) occasions when the trees were found to link together it was a simple job. Also it was eay to compare two or three trees with each other. I had no problems with this method.
Anne

@Colin I've had a play with GedXlate and it looks very useful, especially if you just want to get a "raw list" straight from the gedcom into Excel (or DB). Saves having to go via FH queries, save as csv, import to Excel then save as Excel format. Thanks for that pointer

However I agree with others that, for Karen, bringing all her data into one FH Project would probably be a better solution for what she is trying to achieve. Of course she still has the option of then using GedXlate to extract information from a new "single project" gedcom if she needs to process it in some way in a spreadsheet or database that can't be done in FH. So it keeps her options open.