Family Historian User Group

Hi all

I am trying to avoid a problem arising later when I try to merge two trees.

I have recently done a friends tree for her and now her husband has asked me to do his. I was just going to add his details to her tree and make it a joint tree, but the family want to be able to share their own trees with their own relatives and not cluttered with details of the respective husband/wifes relations if you know what I mean. At some stage though I will want to merge both together so that they can give their children the full tree.

In the wife's tree, I started the source numbering 0001 with the details etc. It occurs to me that if I do the same with the husbands then when the trees are merged the source numbers will get muddled up i.e. both husband and wifes 0001 will be next to each other. Also I intend to use Ancestral Sources to add the Census data. I have already used this for the wifes tree, but again when I open the husbands tree it will start as source number 1 which of course will correspond with the wifes tree.

Has anyone any suggestions as to how I should start numbering the husband's sources so that they can follow on independently from the wife's please so as not to cause problems when I come to merge the files?

I am probably over complicating things and there is a simple solution to this that you all use [grin]

Many thanks
Jackie

ID:5463

I am not quite sure what you mean by source numbering

I don't imagine that you are giving the Source Records specific numerical Names/Titles starting from 0001.
They should have meaningful Names/Titles that describe the Source Document.

Do you mean the Record Id that has its own column in every Record Window and is shown in square brackets in the title bar of each Property Box?
If so, then when you come to merge trees, FH will sort that numbering out automatically, and renumber everything.
If you look carefully you will see that each Individual Record, each Family Record, each Source Record, etc, all start numbering from 1.
In any case the Record Id are entirely arbitrary and should not be thought of as implying any sequence or significance.

No Tatewise that is exactly what I am doing. So my source numbering goes, for example, 0001 John Smith 1911 Census; 0002 John Smith 1901 Census; 0003 John Smith 1891 Census etc. and then I attach a copy of the Census to both the persons mentioned and to the Source number/description. I find that when you give a copy of the tree to someone  together with paper copies it is easier for them to check the 0001 number etc and go to the correct 'paper' Census etc rather than blind people who are unfamiliar with Censuses etc and who may not understand the difference between a 1901 Census and 1881 Census trying to find them.

So if I start husbands tree with 0001 Fred Evans 1911; 0002 Fred Evans 1901 Census; 0003 Fred Evans 1891 Census , then if I merge the trees together I will end up with
0001 John Smith 1911 Census
0001 Fred Evans 1911 Census
0002 John Smith 1901 Census
0002 Fred Evans 1901 Census etc

do you see what I mean? Is there a way to keep the 'Smiths' and the 'Evans' seperate?

Thanks for the info about FH renumbering the Record ID's but this is not really what I am concerned with. But I am interested in the 'Source ID' given by Ancestral Sources,is that the same as the record ID given by FH and therefore will this also be renumbered when the files are merged?
Jackie

Ancestral Sources looks at the last source id used in your file and creates a new source id following that one. i.e.
[New Source ID] = [Last Source ID] + 1
so yes Ancestral Sources will continue to work correctly when you merge your trees and won't create any duplicate IDs.

I've never merged another tree into mine but from what Mike says you won't have any problems with duplicates:

when you come to merge trees, FH will sort that numbering out automatically, and renumber everything.

It is impossible for the file to work if it had two sources with the same ID so the merge process has to renumber them.

OK, I understand your dilemma.
So I suggest you start numbering your husband's tree at 1001 Fred Evans 1911, 1002 Fred Evans 1901, et seq.
Then when you merge they will be kept apart.

Some other thoughts.
If you had not bothered with the numbers, then FH would have sorted your Source Records as follows:

Fred Evans 1901 Census
Fred Evans 1911 Census
...
John Smith 1901 Census
John Smith 1911 Census

But probably you have other names as well, so you could still have given each Source a Custom Id as its unique number for cross-reference.

Even if you start both trees with Source Number 0001 you could give the Source Records a different Source Type in the two trees.
e.g. Wife's tree Smith Census and husband's tree Evans Census or whatever you like.
Ancestral Sources lets you define the Source Type for Census Records.
Then in the merged tree, if you sort on the Type column, the two sets of sources are listed separately.
You can globally change Source Types by using Tools > Work with Data > Source Types.

Explore FH and think outside the box, and I am sure there are other ways.

Thank you Nick and Tatewise. Yes 1001 seems a good idea. I didnt know about the Source Type, that is worth a try. Many thanks to you both, I will give it a whirl
Best wishes
Jackie