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Index Refresh?

I love RM. I upgraded to RM4 and super happy with the product. I do have a question though as I am a year new to RootsMagic. I made a mistake when I was first figuring out Ancestry and RM, I was a paper Genealogist until last year. Somehow I ended up with a huge tree and an entire line is not mine. So, I broke the link and deleted the family line that is not mine but now I have all these people in the search index. The other day I started playing with Family Atlas and used my file to open in Atlas and every one of those people that are not mine showed up.

Is there a way to refresh the Index to only the ancestors actually in there? For the last couple of weeks I have considered starting from scratch and reentering everything (a lot!) into a new tree file. I am not sure if that would work? Maybe everyone on any family file is in a program index?

I hope I explained this well enough to understand..... lol.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Bienia on July 30, 2009 at 4:45pm

One suggestion would be to create (export) a GEDCOM file and import that back into an empty database. Ensure that none of the facts are turned off from being sent to the GEDCOM file. If unsure, check Lists, Fact Types, then look at the right pane, then use the arrow keys to scroll thought the list on the left. Going through the GEDCOM will get rid of the extraneous data.

FYI: THere is an active user list at ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with an archives of previously-submitted list messages.

Bill

Permalink Reply by Bruce Buzbee on August 2, 2009 at 8:20pm

Sharon,

You shouldn't have any names in the index that aren't actually in the database. Unlinking the tree will leave the people in the file.

To delete that entire other tree, do this:

1. File > Export > GEDCOM from the menu
2. Choose the option to export only selected people
3. On the selection screen, click Mark people and then mark everyone in the database
4. Then highlight one of the unwanted people, click Unmark people and unmark everyone in that person's tree. If you broke all the links to that tree it should only unmark that one tree you didn't want.
5. Click OK.
6. Make sure you are going to export everything (notes, sources, media, etc), then do the export
7. Import that file into a new blank database, and you will have a file with everything except that line you didn't want.

- Bruce

Permalink Reply by Sharon Lighthouse on August 3, 2009 at 6:37am

Thank you Bruce!

That sounds super easy and will solve my too many people problem!

Sharon

Permalink Reply by Sharon Lighthouse on August 13, 2009 at 9:56am

As I sat at Pennsic in the middle ages :)... I kept thinking about cleaning up this file so once home and had a day of being a couch slug I opened the lap top and RM4 to get this file under control because I truly feel the distraction of this mess is keeping me from being productive.

I see what you said Bruce. By unlinking them I thought they were gone. So! Good news, the file is cleaned up.. unlinked and deleted families. I then exported and picked the people I wanted in there and now I feel like I have some control here!

Huge thank you's to both you, Bill, and Bruce. I used both or your helpful hints and ready to get working again.

Index Refresh?

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