Success or a pain in the neck?

[Mike_E]

Hi,

In the past 2 years I've taken my tree from my Mum, Dad and siblings to 2000 acurate records, but just recently I've found two other trees which knit very well into mine. My problem is, these trees are 22,000 and 38,000 names, I've checked quite a few enties, and none of them have the tell tale signs of speculative dates and entries you see so often on data coming out of an LDS listing.
Should I merge all, or just selectivly. While my tree is in the 2K range, it's possible to print it out with FTM, but I've tried with a larger tree and it can't display it on screen anymore.
Should I just rip out the bits that are close, or go with the all in one tree? what do other folks on the lsit do, or have I been lucky in finding this linked data.

Rgds
Mike

[Guy Etchells]

I would keep all three trees seperate and only merge data once I had checked it from the original source.

It would also be possible to merge all three trees after adding source information for the two external trees. This would provide a useful combined tree.
The problem with merging trees is defining sources and dealing with duplicate entries.

There should be no problems working and swapping between with four different databases, I do it all the time in Brothers Keeper.
Cheers
Guy

[Geoffers]

I would keep them separate too.

A passing thought - Could you copy and paste your basic file recorded on your prorgramme to the same folder and give it a different title - e.g. 'Mike_e working copy' and just mess around with this copy, keeping the main file as an unaltered master copy?

You could create master and working copies of the new files and merge the working copies in with your working copy - you could then have a browse of one larger working copy file just to get a glimspe of how things fit together. Just a thought.....

Geoffers

[Ed Bradford]

I don’t know how you’re doing your genealogy so it’s a little difficult to advise you. I don’t know if you’re just following a direct descendant line or including side lines. If it were me, I’d keep them separate for the time being. As you find proof on a person or a family in one of the other databases, I’d add that person or family to yours. Eventually, you’ll have in your database the data you want and the data you’re sure of.
.................Ed

[Mike_E]

I don’t know how you’re doing your genealogy.

I started only following the main family line up, G-parents GG etc, but soon found I had lots of other data too, and very soon had all these GG-Aunts and uncles and then their kids and so on, and it wasn't long before I had reached the 2K mark,

I like being able to print off the direct lines for myself and other close family, so perhaps the idea of having a master copy containing everything, and a few seperate DB's is a good way to go. I take regular backups which I store on the web, and also on two seperate HDD, one I keep at home away from the PC, and one I keep at work. I figure all this data has to be protected from loss, it's cost me a few quid!.

Thanks for the input folks,

Rgds
Mike

[Mike_E]

I would keep them separate too.
A passing thought - Could you copy and paste your basic file recorded on your prorgramme to the same folder and give it a different title

I have number of folders I work in, one for my tree with a whole bunch of sub directories I store all the images in. My tree is complicated by the fact I have data from Germany, Holland, the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Each of these sub directories has directories for Census images, Birth, Death, marriage etc, so it's quite large. At last count I was just over 3 Gbt of data.

I had contemplated unloading all the images into the FTM file, Was going to add sortcut links?? might still do this, but if I have a re-organisation of the file structure, it would require a big edit of the data file.

Rgds
Mike