* unexpected Media deluge

[deepdiver]

I've made a mistake but am not sure how it happened. The result is 'too much information!' and I would like to know if there is a quick way to correct it (other than restoring via backup). I also wish to know what I did wrong!

I have two FH projects: one for my own family history (let's call that Project Mine) and one for a one name study (we'll call that Project OneName).

I discovered via recent research that an individual in OneName was in fact related to me, so wanted to have that data in Mine. I therefore exported a Gedcom of the individual and his parents. Since there was some media and sources connected with this individual, I chose NOT to exclude sources and media in the box that pops up when you do this, because I did not want to have to manually insert them later (misguided laziness on my part, perhaps).

I made the standalone little gedcom. I then imported this into Mine, and all looked fine with this person neatly slotted into my family tree, complete with his small number of media items like certificates and photo. So far, so good.

Later, when I came to look at the filesize of Mine while doing an external backup, I noticed it was huge, indeed far bigger than normal. When I examined Mine in detail, I found that although Family Historian had imported only the correct number of Individuals (3) into the project, when I looked at the Sources, Notes, and especially Media, I found it had imported ALL of these items from OneName. So I now have a lot of media and other items which are not linked to anyone in the Mine project.

I would like to understand how this happened. I should point out that my default folder for media is the main one, Media. I do not use subfolders. But I had assumed that the import would only bring in the items that were linked to the individuals I was importing, not everything.

Where did I go wrong?

Andrea Cordani

[davidm_uk]

I don't know why it happened, but you could use the Check for Unlinked Media plugin (http://www.family-historian.co.uk/plugi ... try?id=272), which optionally give you the option to delete any unlinked media files in that project.

I always run the Check option first, just to make sure that it's finding the correct items.

[lastejas]

In the Export Gedcom file dialog box make sure you enable (tick) the "unconnected records" box. This will then exclude any of the notes, media etc that are not connected with the people your exporting.

[deepdiver]

Thanks to the both the people who have replied and a) provided me with a helpful solution and b) pointed out what I did wrong!

Your help is much appreciated, thank you.
Andrea

[tatewise]

Andrea, see how_to:exporting_gedcom_with_multimedia|> Exporting a Family Tree with/without Media that explains the details that support the advice given by those earlier replies.

[E Wilcock]

Coincidence - I just had the same problem. With sources, not media. And came on the Forum to complain.

I dont regard this as an error of mine. I think it is something which fh handles in a way that is markedly different from database genealogy software.
I put about 8 people from a particular University in a database I started years ago to study academics who lost their jobs when the Nazis took power.
I decided to move them from my university study into a current place study of the town where they lived.
I dont think I used the plug in. I put them in a named list and exported that - and as described above they came across with every singe source record from my academic study.
For all I know I have unused place records too?
A right muddle and all I wanted to do was to move 8 people.
I can presumably run a plug in to find unused sources and then add these sources to a named list and then delete them.
But it is really annoying when fh default differs from what I regard as normal practice -

[davidm_uk]

In any process where you are going to delete information, surely it's safer that the default is set to not delete, and you have to make a conscious choice to change it to delete.

[tatewise]

Contrary to your claim, the FH File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File dialogue does exclude unused records by default. Its Exclude option for Unconnected Records is ticked by default, so I suspect you removed that tick by mistake?
That is explained in the Help for that dialogue.

Evelyn, you don't need a Plugin to find unused records.
In the Records Window select the tab for the type of record of interest.
i.e. The Sources tab for Source records, and the Places tab for Place records.
(BTW: You should have ten tabs in the Records Window from Individuals through to Headers.)

In most cases click on the Links column heading to sort all 0 Links together.
But for Source records the links are named Citations.
Then select all the unused records and add them to a Named List for deletion.
See how_to:delete_a_large_number_of_records|> Delete Any Number of Records for full details.

Alternatively, you could use the File > Split Tree Helper that has options to Delete ... Records with no links left to them.
But unfortunately, this does not cater for Place Records.

Anyway, before any bulk deletions, do use File > Backup/Restore > Small Backup just in case!

[E Wilcock]

Thanks Mike - I almost cross posted to ask you this. Will sort it out tonight.

[E Wilcock]

I was able to use the split tree helper to do this Mike Thank you.
Since it seems I made a user error, I have indeed gone back and looked again at the help for the export. I did look at it at the time.

There are two exclusions which I believe I did uncheck. Because as so often I cant understand the Help instructions until they are interpreted by you.
The first says:
Family records which would be left with only one member (given the list of Individuals selected for export) are excluded. Family records which would be left with no members are always excluded in any case.
Since I was exporting a list of people resident in a particular town who were for the most part unrelated to each other, though some might possibly have a wife or a father, I believed that unless I unchecked this box, no one would be exported at all. Because their families are being completely removed. No members left.

The second example (the one I should not have unchecked if I had wanted to exclude unused sources) reads:
(Exclude) Unconnected Records
All records which, after the export, would not be linked, directly or indirectly, to any of the list of Individuals selected for export, are excluded.

It is talking about records that would not be linked after the export and I failed to understand this, why anything should become unconnected during the export. I believed that the process of export might disconnect something. It isnt after the export that is important here - surely it should ask about all source records not currently linked to the people you are planning to export?

[tatewise]

The discussion must relate to the state after the export, because before the export most records (Families, Notes, Sources, Repositories, Media, Places) will be linked to something.

You should usually leave One-member Family Records ticked.
These are Family records with only one parent or one child so serve no useful purpose in defining family relationships.

You should leave Unconnected Records ticked.
The export focusses on Individual records, but must also consider all other types of records.
Imagine the exported set of records with only your chosen Individual records remaining.
All the Note, Source, Media, and Place records that were only connected to the now excluded Individual records are now unconnected, so should be excluded. That may have a ripple effect and leave further records unconnected that should also be excluded, e.g. Repository or Media records that were linked only to Source or Place records that have now been excluded.

NOTE that the Split Tree Helper does NOT remove unconnected Place records.
So you must use the Named List method for them.