* Easy Way to Split Tree in Half?

[HoagyM]

Sorry, newbie time again!

I know the Knowledge Base has lots on splitting trees, and I found a post from 2016 with an almost identical title to this one, but having read all of that I'm still in the dark on one fundamental point. I have a very basic requirement - split the tree in half, so that I just have my side of our tree, but not my wife's.

I understand there are two approachs - copy and use the split tree function, or use the GEDCOM extract function. In each case using queries to include/exclude individuals you want or don't want. That's all clear.

However, if I use the "all relatives" query to select all my relatives, it correctly excludes all my wife's stuff, but also excludes people in my tree who are only related to me through marriage (e.g. the ancestors of my great aunt's husband). So I haven't got a complete "half tree".

Similarly if I instead use a query to exclude my wife's "all relatives", it leaves in those who are only connected to her via marriage, leaving a clean-up operation to be done to hunt down and delete those people too. Which seems like a lot of work for such a basic requirement.

Is there a simple query that can be run to literally split the tree in half, leaving in every individual who is on the "right" side of the tree?

[LornaCraig]

There is a plugin written by Mike Tate called All Pool Relatives Except Partner Ancestors. If you select yourself as the starting person it will produce a Result set containing the people you want, and you can them add them to a Named List.

[tatewise]

A complication is if there are ancestral marriages that bridge across from your ancestors to your wife's ancestors.

If they don't exist then here is a simple method.
In a copy of your Project, delete your wife's Individual record.
Now run the Query > Relatives and Relationships > Search for Orphans.
Check which Pool number your own record belongs to.
Delete every Individual record that is not in your Pool number using the advice in Delete One or Many Records about using a Named List.

[LornaCraig]

Remember that whichever method you use you will probably want to delete any records of other types which are left with no links. There are options in the Split Tree Helper to delete most types of record if they have no links left, but unfortunately it doesn’t include an option for Place records which would need to be deleted separately.

[GeneSniper]

Surely there should be a very easy way to do this. I am sure I asked about this before and it made me go back and look at FTM2019 (as I was sure there was an option for this) and sure enough pick the person, right click and pick export branch and you have what is being asked for. I suppose that this means I won't be getting rid of FTM (as I had hoped to do) as this is one thing I had struggled with, with FH and I sometimes get a request from a relative for their part of my tree.

[tatewise]

William, who exactly was included in such a branch?

• Only direct line ancestors?
• All descendants?
• All ancestors and all their descendants and ancestors, i.e. all relatives?

What happens if an ancestor of the chosen person was married to an ancestor of the chosen person's spouse?
i.e. The chosen person and spouse have some other relationship via their common ancestors.

[HoagyM]

Thanks all for the replies.

@Tatewise - no, we have no bridging ancestors (that I have yet discovered, anyway!), so that sounds like a fairly easy way to do it - I've used that "search for orphans" query, the pool numbers, and named lists a month or so back, so I think I know how all that works. Thanks again.

Was using that orphans query when I was cutting out some of the deadwood in my tree - some 400 individuals that really shouldn't have been in there. All part of a major housekeeping overhaul of my tree that I'm doing, which was initiated after attending my first ever genealogy course in the summer and discovering all the things I'd been doing wrong for well over 30 years!

@GeneSniper - yes I agree, it really doesn't sound like rocket science (especially compared to all the other sophisticated stuff in FH) to be able to just say "give me that person's branch". Really surprised it's not there - but personally I won't be going back to FTM (which I left some 15 years ago or so for FH), as it's hard enough trying to understand/manage one family tree software product, without using two!

[GeneSniper]

Mike

who exactly was included in such a branch?

All Relatives

What happens if an ancestor of the chosen person was married to an ancestor of the chosen person's spouse?

Can't answer that as it hasn't so far happened in my tree. I possibly have it in my side of the family but have never been able to prove the parents of the person. They are the only family of that name in the village/surrounding area, but no proof of birth or death, only marriage and I have the sneaking suspicion she may have been adopted or another family members child, so I have never linked my tree with her. My presumption would be that FTM works its way back from the chosen person, so would include the part of the spouse's family that were relatives of the chosen person

The FTM2019 Help file states-

The Export Branch Wizard lets you easily export the people related to the person selected in the Pedigree View of the People tab. You can export to the same formats as the Export command, but the Export Branch Wizard automatically filters the project to relatives (ancestors and descendents)of the selected person.

The Export Branch wizard filters for the following relatives of theroot person:

•direct descendents (children and grandchildren)
•spouses of direct descendents
•siblings of the root person
•spouses of root person's siblings
•descendents of the root person's siblings
•direct ancestors
•siblings of direct ancestors
•spouses and descendents of the siblings of direct ancestors
•does not include the ancestors of spouses

[LornaCraig]

@Genesniper:
From what you have said it seems that the FTM branch export has exactly the same limitation as the FH one. The penultimate line in the list you have quoted from FTM is “spouses and descendants of the siblings of direct ancestors” and the last line is “does not include the ancestors of spouses” which I take to be referring to the spouses mentioned in the previous line, not just the spouse of the selected root person.

But the problem HoagyM had is that he wants to include people who are the ancestors of spouses (and other blood relatives of those spouses). As he said, using the FH All Relatives query to select his relatives “correctly excludes all my wife's stuff, but also excludes people in my tree who are only related to me through marriage (e.g. the ancestors of my great aunt's husband). So I haven't got a complete "half tree".” But it appears that FTM would not include them either.

[tatewise]

The exclusion of ancestors of spouses presumably also applies to the spouses of descendants of the root person.
So just like FH it does NOT include all relatives.

[LornaCraig]

It DOES include 'All Relatives' but the point is that FH (and presumably FTM) defines a relative as anyone who is a blood (DNA) relative or is a spouse of one of those people.
The only exception is that for this purpose an adoptive relationship is treated as a blood relationship.

So it doesn't include relatives of spouses of blood relatives. The line has to drawn somewhere. In everyday language would you really regard a brother-in-law of a brother-in-law of a brother-in-law as a relative?

[tatewise]

In the context of the objectives of HoagyM, 'all relatives' means everyone in the same Relationship Pool except his wife's branch.
So that includes everyone related by blood or marriage.

In everyday language, I would consider my wife's parents as relatives but they are excluded by FTM and FH.

BTW: I consider people such as the parents of my child's spouse as relatives but they are excluded by FTM and FH.

[LornaCraig]

Understood, but as I said the line has to be drawn somewhere. Are your wife's parents' cousins' spouses' parents your relatives? I suspect that different people would draw the line in different places. I think the 'DNA relative or spouse of one of those' is a reasonable place to draw it. It also makes an 'All Relatives' diagram manageable. (Consider the difference beween an All Relatives diagram and an 'All Relatives & Indirect Relatives' diagram.)

The important point is that wherever you draw the line there will be a difference between 'relative' and 'member of the same pool'. I wouldn't want to lose that distinction.

[HoagyM]

Just to say that, yes, you have correctly understood what I was trying to do - literally just to split the tree in half. So the semantics of who is/is not a relative (in the context of what I was trying to do), is pretty irrelevant.

It just felt to me, and still feels to me, that there ought to be a simple way (like a single button click?) to be able to just select an individual and split off their compete ancestor tree, including all individuals, however related (blood, marriage, whatever). Recognising of course that any bridging ancestors would complicate things.

Meanwhile, in the absence of such a facility, I am fine using the method outlined by Tatewise (thanks again!).

[jelv]

I've just done what I think is requested by making use of pool numbers. I wanted a tree that contained just my fathers side of my family. Steps:

1. Copy the project and then in the copied project...
2. Delete my mother's parents
3. Delete my wife's parents.
4. Run a simple query to list all individuals with a column showing RelationPool(%INDI%) to confirm everyone I want is in pool 1
5. Run attached query to list all individuals not in pool 1
6. Add all individuals in the result set to a named list and then delete named list records
7. Run split tree helper with Do not delete any Individual records selected and all other records with the "...no links to them" option
8. Places: in the records window sort to ascending links order, select all with zero links, add to named list and delete

The result is a project containing individuals connected to my father in any way.

If when reviewing those in pool 1 there are bridging ancestors it should just be the case of deleting the relations of the bridged individual that make the link(s) to the unwanted individuals.

Using the principles of this procedure it should be able to extract any tree by judicious pruning of individuals who link to unwanted parts of the tree and then deleting everyone not in the wanted pool number.

[tatewise]

John, that is effectively the process I posted last Sunday and which does not need a custom Query.
You just selected the Individuals not in the desired Pool to add to a Named List for deletion.

As Lorna mentioned, there is the All Pool Relatives Except Partner Ancestors plugin to deal with bridging ancestors.
It allows the user to decide what proportion of the shared branch is included for bridging ancestors.

[LornaCraig]

In case it’s of interest, for those who like to have a visual aid there is a simple method of selecting the required records using a diagram (in V7). For example, to select ‘everyone’ on your own side of the tree but none of your spouse’s side, use the following steps:

1. Use Charts > All Relatives and Indirect Relatives Diagram. Make sure the Tree Root Type is set to Individual, and select yourself as the root.

2. Click the Fit button in the diagram toolbar to make sure you can see the entire diagram on the screen.

3. Click the Select button in the diagram toolbar and use the mouse to draw a box round the entire diagram. This will select all the boxes on display.

4. Use Edit > Add to Named List.

This assumes that there are no ancestors in common. If there are, your spouse will be included in the diagram as one of your own blood relatives (as well as being shown as your spouse) which in turn means that any ‘indirect’ relatives of your spouse will also be included. But you can use the diagram to hide any of those people you don’t want to include.

[Gowermick]

3. Click the Select button in the diagram toolbar and use the mouse to draw a box round the entire diagram. This will select all the boxes on display.

There is a minor bug in FH, whereby the Select button and others may be off-screen, so not visible. If you widen FH window, then shrink it back to original size, the toolbar resizes itself so Select button magically appears.

I haven’t yet reported this to CP, something I need to rectify

UPDATE: Ticket 970935 Issued