Genealogy Chat

How would I go about forming individual family trees from the various component families within the overall tree on a large(ish - 1050 names) - family tree. If I have, for instance, eight named family inputs into 'me' then, OK, I could GEDCOM my tree eight times with eight different family names - would I then have to manually delete all individuals which did not relate to that particular name from each ... or is there a 'proper' way of achieving this?

Any thoughts in regard to this will be appreciated - John

Hi William John

You will need to purchase/obtain/download an off line FH tree programme. Most of the commercial ones have a 'tree splitter' option usually with instructions.

In general terms, you make a copy of the full gedcom, open up a diagram In tree view with the most distant ancestor you want to follow as the root. Then follow the instructions as per your FH programme. You can of course choose any person in your full tree to base the new one(s) on.

You will need to copy the original gedcom and repeat the exercise for each 'new' tree you want to create.

Currently GR will only allow you to upload one gedcom although if you wanted all 5 on line you might be able to open separate free accounts using different email addresses.

I would ask the question why? and incidentally, 1050 names is actually a relatively small tree.

When I started out computerising my tree information some ten years ago I thought exactly the same as you and set up a number of trees for this very purpose. It lasted for about two months after which I realized it was not such a good idea and created more problems than it was designed to solve - it was simply too much hassle trying to maintain multiple trees in this way.

Since then I keep one master tree using a commercial tree program. My program of choice is FTM which is also synced to my Ancestry tree. In terms of size, mine has currently grown to around 15,000 names which includes several mini one-name studies I am interested in so some branches extend far wider than immediate family.

You would also be surprised how many cross connections between families there are, especially if you have rural connections, and this becomes increasingly impossible to manage on split trees.

If I want to produce a tree for a particular connection, say to pass to a family member or other researcher, then it is a relatively simple matter to export the branch concerned as a gedcom or genealogy report.

GR and other sites I use are also updated via gedcom, but rarely updated manually, they just get replaced from time to time.

I only have a tree on Ancestry.

I have my main tree and also 2 trees for a couple of interesting branches that I wanted to see in isolation, lots of illegitimate kids and multiple marriages.

I update my main tree and then more often than not, the 'hints' will throw up my findings on my 'sub' trees.

Many many thanks for the replies - gives me food for thought and possible ways forward. I hear what is said re an overall 'complete' tree and can well understand the reasoning. What I wanted to be able to do was to give a 'sub tree' to particular family members who would have no interest is the whole tree - maybe I should retain the complete tree as a master and then sub parts off that - I can retain the whole (and my family was very rural) to get the benefit if inter-relationships .... more thought - and decisions - required. Thanks once again - John

Some time ago I also had the idea to split my tree, especially as one branch is particularly interesting and, therefore, weighed heavily with historical information. However, soon after I started, I realised it was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, and I found having separate trees was not only confusing but also didn't quite achieve a sense of belonging.

In the end I opted for 2 trees....one for my mother's side, and one for my father's side. Knowing they would have no possibility of intertwining it was the best and easiest solution - and it works just fine :-)