Help with Family Tree Maker. please.

[Kevwood]

Hi,

I am desperately in need of some help with family tree maker before the PC goes through the from window!!!

Too briefly explain:

I have a laptop and desktop PC , sometimes i am researching on one and sometimes the other. Both have FTM 2005 on them, now sometimes i forget to transfer some details from one to the other so i have one tree on the desktop and one on the laptop that i want to merge together.

Done this before many many times, so i actually know how to do this.

BUT for the last few months it won't let me do it on either computer and after a heavy amount of research i now have 400 more people in the desktop tree than i have in the laptop tre!!!

Everytime i try to merge i get to the select individuals page, click the >>  to send every one over, then when i press ok i get an error message saying:

CANNOT COMPLETE THIS OPERATION, THERE ARE TOO MANY BOOK ITEMS.


Can't find this listed in troubleshooting, i have no Books on either tree.

Please, please help as its really frustrating and there is no way im manually entering them all again.

Thanks,

Kev.

[mike175]

I'm not a FTM user, but if nothing else works could you export the extra people to a GEDCOM, then merge that in the other tree?

In RootsMagic, which I use, it is possible to open 2 databases at once, then drag and drop individuals or families from one to the other. Does FTM have the same facility?

Mike.

[Kevwood]

Hi Mike, i can't open both at the same time, i might be able to export them both as GEDCOMS and try and merge them with some other software. Then export it back??

One of the problems is i may have people on the laptop tree that i dont have on the desktop!! Even though there are 400 more on the desktop.


Thanks for your idea,

Kev.

[mike175]

I sympathise. I've done exactly the same, but luckily not with 400 extras cos I had to re-type them!

Maybe this will bring your thread to the top again, and a FTM user will come to your aid.

Good luck.

Mike.

[downside]

In general it should be your aim to create one complete .ftw using the data from 2 .ftw files.

You will need to decide which file you want to use to contain all the data.  We will call that file the tartget file.

Once that has been decided then you will need to extract the missing data from the second file which we call the source file.  If I were you I would extract small amounts of data at a time and then try and merge it with the target file.
Run an Outline Descendancy Report to extract the data from the source file and then export it as a gedcom file.  Then import/merge the gedcom file into the target file.  Repeat the process until all the data is imported/merged into the target file.

[Kevwood]

Hi Downside, it won't let me merge any files im afraid, it comes up with the same error as above.

I thought i'd cracked it last week, i transfered a small file from desktop to laptop and it wouldn't merge, i then renamed it and saved it again and it worked, i have tried this since and it isn't working!.


Thanks for your help.

Kev.

[downside]

There is some information here about your error message:-

http://www.rootschat.com/links/0393/

[Kevwood]

Thanks Downside, thing is i don't have any books in either file??

I had 1 and i deleted it.

Its really confusing.

Kev.

[Nadine Moore]

Kev

Looking at downside's article, there are some further options - have you tried the fix file option in case the data may be corrupted?

http://www.rootschat.com/links/03ba/

Good luck, and hope you find a solution

dinie