* Advice re Merging Projects

[davidm_uk]

I have two projects which I have created using FH, one for myself and wife with around 3500 individuals, and one for my daughter-in-law with about 800 individuals. There is another connection between the two trees a few generations back - my son's great(x3) grandparents turned out to be my d-i-l's great(x5) grandparents, so there are quite a few individuals common to both trees, with associated sources and media, although these aren't consistent between the two trees (I didn't make the connection until I'd done quite a lot of work on d-i-l's tree). In some cases my tree has "better" information, in other cases d-i-l's is better, and quite a few bits agree, although title of source and media records and media files might be not quite the same.

I've created complete copies of both projects to work with, and had a look at using Merge, but it's going to be a longer job than I can manage at one sitting. I know that I can't save a "merge definition" part way through and then return to it, and I know that I can split off whole branches where there is no overlap, and I have read through the KB on merge.

Also I'm unclear if a merge will actually copy across the media files themselves if I merge the media records, or select the media record from the merge project rather than the main project?

Has anyone else done this and could perhaps suggest a strategy whereby I can do this job in manageable bits?

[tatewise]

David, the process is probably best split up into a number of steps.

I suspect merging your tree with d-i-l's tree should be straightforward, apart from the shared distant ancestors.

So, split d-i-l's tree into two: 1) Base of tree back to shared ancestors, 2) The shared ancestors and all their ancestors, etc.
Your d-i-l's great(x5) grandparents should remain in both trees for auto-merging later.
Then merge your main tree with tree 1) above, which should be completed easily in one session.
The only merging will be at the base of both trees, and for the shared great(x3&5) grandparents.
Any Media files linked to Media records added from tree 1) should automatically get copied into your main project.
(A quick experiment with a couple of tiny trees will confirm that to your satisfaction.)

You seem to know which tree has the 'better' information for each Source Citation, etc.
Perhaps the best way to simplify the merge is to delete the 'lesser' information from each tree.
Then just the 'better' information will be retained for the merge.
That manual process can be completed at your leisure.

When you merge your pruned main tree with pruned tree 2) there will be little to merge apart from the shared Individuals.
So, it should be a fairly simple process of accepting what FH is offering on each tab in the Merge dialogue.

[davidm_uk]

Thanks for those ideas Mike, sounds like a plan

For both projects I think I'll set up some temporary flags and add icons to a custom all relatives diagram so that I can keeps tabs on who I've done whilst working through the "delete the 'lesser' information from each tree" part of the job. Then I can have both projects open with diagrams to work through the individuals and their facts (oh for a much bigger screen!).