Removing Unrelated People in Gedcom

[Copernicus]

Hello,

I've been looking all over the internet and can't find a single thing pointing to a solution to this:

Basically, a while back (maybe a year or two ago) I found a public gedcom file which had a decent mesh with mine through a relative on my father's side.

Logically, I thought of merging it into mine, since, being related through that person / people, I presumed all people in that tree were related.

Of course, I ended up being wrong, and there was a lot of garbage in there (i.e. people unrelated to the main tree, essentially being several trees in the main file).

Now, i've dealt with it being in there for a while, but it messes up the reporting, saying this Robert Le Shearman from 1281 is the oldest person in my family, when he's completely unrelated and having a whole bunch of Scandinavian lines which have absolutely nothing to do with me.  Any sort of other tool I use it with, everything gets wrong, since unrelated people are calculated to be related to me and it's something that is getting fairly troublesome.

So, my question is:  Is there a tool / program out there that removes unrelated individuals from a Gedcom file, which would correct this issue?

Note: I would do this manually, but I have 7500 people in my file (probably half of which are garbage and unrelated) which would take an eternity to do in that fashion.

Thanks!

[Paul Caswell]

Hi Copernicus,

Do you use an FH program to work with you GedCom? If so which one do you use?

Paul

[Copernicus]

Familytreemaker.

[andycand]

Hi

I'm not familiar with Familytreemaker but presumably it has a backup facility. If so, do you have a backup from prior to the merging of the trees? You should then be able to restore your tree (I would do it with a different name to your current tree). Someone with knowledge of FTM would be able to advise you so that you don't lose your current tree.

Andy

[Nick29]

In the past I've used software called The Complete Genealogy Reporter which comes with a utility called Gedpad Pro, which is a useful GEDCOM editing facility which is good for weeding out orphaned entries.  I think you can also do search and replace and similar stuff with it.

[skb]

Are you able to create a descendant or ancestor tree (within Family Tree maker) which only contains the people you want? If so you can export this selection and rebuild your gedcom/Family Tree Maker file.

You may also be able to do it by creating a descendant tree of a branch you DON'T want, then doing a "Delete individuals" from the "People" menu.

[Suttonrog]

Family Historian has a split tree wizard which I have used with great success. They have a free trial version but I'm not sure if this operates within the trial.

Rog

[downside]

1) You are not editing a GEDCOM file, you are editing a .ftw file if you are using FTM software.
2) You can delete either individuals or whole branches in FTM.
3) If you did the merger sometime ago then you probably do not have a pre-merge backup to fall back on.  The standard .fbk backup file in FTM gets overwritten during every session.

It looks like you are going to have to do it the hard way and manually delete those branches and or individuals you do not want.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

There are really only two ways it could be done accurately and both need an element of manual work. I am always wary of editing a file by way of a descendants of a primary individual because there are often duplicated names that can be removed/included in error by an automatic process.
Manual removal is a bit of a chore but does offer a bit of control.

First thing to do is make sure the current .FTW file is backed up to a disc or memory stick, that is a MUST DO step, if you happen to delete someone in error and don't have the file backed up then it will cause all sorts of problems later. If you do have the file backed up you can start all over again.

Regular backups are important anyway but they are vital before you attempt any major editing on a file.

Method 1
1. Open FTM and go through the list of individuals, select the ones to delete and remove them by using the People>Delete Individual process.

You are picking the names you want to DELETE via this method

Method 2
1. Export File>Selected Individuals

You again have to go through the Index of Individuals and choose the ones you want to include

You are picking the names you want to INCLUDE (ie those you want to keep) via this method.

2 save the file (with a name that makes it easy to identify) as either an .FTW file or a GED format.

***Note though that if you have images attached to anyone that you wish to keep that the .FTW filetype is the one to use, the .GED format cannot transfer images***


Either way round if the file has a lot of names it is a slog going through the names one by one and before you try to change anything you MUST create a backup copy.