TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2003-11 > 1067784825


From: Terry Reigel <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Merging or sycnchronisation of data
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 09:53:45 -0500
In-Reply-To: <3FA50E63.854EE0EE@ntlworld.com>


On Sun, 02 Nov 2003 14:02:11 +0000, Angela Harris wrote:
> I was pretty stupid and added significant information on
> my ancestors to both my old version of TMG 4.0d and my
> new version 5.09. I want to merge the data or synchronize
> it so that I don't have to re-enter the info again. I
> thought this would be easy to do as it would be the same
> when dealing with another researcher and their version of
> TMG. However, I am completely lost in the terminology of
> data-sets and projects. Can someone tell me in simple
> steps what to do. I'll then delete the old version so
> that it can't happen again!

Angela,

I would suggest the following. First, read my articles on Projects and
Datasets (at http://tmg.reigelridge.com/projects-dataset.htm) and the
one on copying and moving people between datasets (at
http://tmg.reigelridge.com/copy-move.htm) to get a better
understanding of the processes you need to use.

Then, my suggestion is to 1) create a new dataset in TMG4 containing
only people who you have changed since you imported into TMG5, 2)
import that dataset into your existing TMG5 Project, 3) copy those
people into your exiting TMG Dataset, and then 4) attach them to the
people already there, or merge them if the same people are already
there.

To do this:

****First, make sure you have backups of both TMG4 & TMG5 data****

1 - Open TMG5, open Dataset Manager (File > Dataset Manger) and look
at the name of the dataset -- unless you have changed it, it will have
the date of import. Note that date, and exit DSM.

2- In TMG4, create a List of People report, with a secondary output of
"Create new dataset" and a focus filer of:

Last Edited Date Comes After 3 May 2003

where you make the date the day before the one noted above, and make
sure none of the "And then add their..." boxes are checked. Run the
report, and allow the new dataset to be created.

3- In TMG5, Import the dataset created above into your current
Project. Using File > Import is the easiest -- just make sure you tell
it to add the dataset to the current project.

4- Now, you could either merge the two datasets, or copy the people in
groups of related people. I don't know that it matters which you do.

5- Now comes the hard part. Just what you do depends on what kind of
data you added in TMG4. If it was mainly new people, you have to
create new relationship tags -- parent/child or marriage -- to connect
the people you added in TMG4 to those you had already in TMG5. If you
added data to existing people, you can add the additional tags from
TMG4 people to the exiting TMG5 people two ways:

a- Use Merge People to merge the two copies of each person. Make sure
the person already in the TMG5 data is on the left, and the person
newly imported on the right. Uncheck on the right all tags that are
exactly the same as those on the left, then merge.

b- Open two copies of TMG, so you can view the two copies of the
person at once, and use Windows copy and paste to transfer the data
field by field from one person to the other.

6- When you are done, delete the newly imported dataset using Dataset
Manger.

7- I wouldn't actually delete the TMG4 dataset, "just in case." But I
might change the name to something obviously different (use File >
Copy to create a copy under a new name, then File > Delete to delete
the only one.)

Terry Reigel



This thread: