Recommendations

I have found that between geni.com, ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker, and Legacy that I have things I like about each and things I do not like. As a result, I see that there is some issues I need to resolve but do not know the best way to handle it.

I have many GED files. One in particular - I will use as my example - is a huge chunk of Dyers. Being my last name and the fact that this GED is missing my particular family for the last 4 generations, I'd like to merge. Problem is that the original file has a lot of duplicates. I mean a lot! like 4900 of them.

So, my quandry is that I need to find the best way to "clean the underbrush" leaving me with just the individuals needed so that I can have a clean file.

I know that geni does not give any controls over what it exports to GED file and neither does Ancestry.com. Whick leaves me with FTM and Legacy. Which of these will do a better job exporting? Am I even going about this in the correct way? Any suggestions?

Bjørn P. Brox: BUMP!

Just to make it visible for more people...

I have 4-or 5 GED files of dyers. some are connected to me, some are not. I i was to merge the trees that are connected to me, I would have a TON of merge issues since there is a lot of duplication. To avoid this, is there a way to remove profiles so that there is less duplication?

Further complications...

I thought I can clean the profiles by merging two trees... create a new profile with the New GED that has all the extra info... and doing that merge thingy where you request friend (yaddy yadda yadda). But geni took away the option to imoprt from a GED unless you upgrade to a pro account.

Ok. I am now importing my other "Dyer" gedcom file and am going to merge profiles. This should add about 28K profiles to my managed count. Looks like a long couple of months.

David, sorry I didn't see and reply to this sooner.

I would recommend using a program called GRAMPS (Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System) http://www.gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page .

This tool has the ability to 'merge' duplicate profiles which should help you reduce the number of duplicates in your gedcom files. This tool is also useful in 'merging' gedcom files, so you can reduce the number of files you have (each with their own duplicates).

Good luck
Jason P Herbert