Family Historian problem

[Top-of-the-hill]

   I have been using F.H. for years, but only at a very basic level. My problem is that I want to delete some duplicate entries (a family with numerous versions of the surname), but I can find no way of doing this. It is probably staring me in the face.

   No sooner did I post this than I went back and found the answer!

[andrewalston]

In most software, you can merge details of individuals.

So if you had Frederick Smith in the 1881 census and Fred Smith in the 1891 census and you found they were the same person, merging them would result in one person with both censuses attached.

You could then tidy up other events such as birth details. You might have to follow up with merging others in the family; you might have some details of a father from Fred's marriage and others from Frederick's birth, for example.

[Aceh]

Like Top-of-the-hill above I have just found a suggested (by FamilySearch) new ancester [in the early 1500s] who was reached via 3 different routes and consequently having 3 different IDs which needed sorting out. Again, I hadn't thought about using "Merge" either. so I deleted two of them and continued on my merry way. Later I went back to Root Person and found my late father sitting in my place! There was no way that I was able to change this because, when I tried to find myself via "Find" I was not recognised - all of my own data had been deleted!I have no idea how this happened, but I suspect it may have been a mouse-slip or something during the deletion of the duplicates above.
Now, I usually work on a 27" screen desk-top, which for FH only, has been sycronised [not by me] with my laptop via One-Drive, so that what is on the desk-top also eventually appears on the laptop.
Fortunately, the lap-top still has me as the root person and has all my data on it as the error on the desk-top has not yet rippled through to the laptop - yes I'ved checked the sychro and it is working. However all of the recent back-ups on both machines show my father as the root person!!!
 
Help - I'm well out of my depth, my 78 year old brain cannot handle this - how can I transfer the correct version from my lap-top to my desk top to replace the error without losing the correct version?
 

[Isabel H]

This probably needs help from whoever helped set up your system, or at least someone more knowledgable than I am, but in the meantime I would try to safeguard the correct version (if it's not already too late).

Take the laptop offline so it can't sync with the altered data, make a copy of the correct data files, and rename the copy to keep it safe.

Hopefully someone can explain how to proceed from there.

[Aceh]

Isabel,

Many thanks for your swift reply. The synchronisation (to allow me to take the laptop to archives etc with up-to-date data) was done some years ago and the person concerned is no longer with us. I closed the laptop down, but, only after I had taken screen shots of all my personal data, so if the worst comes to the worse I will be able to reconstruct myself and reclaim my position as root person; however in that event I will have a 3,300 odd ID No.
My brother, who has no interest in family history, but is a long retired computer wizz and now runs a sailing club, will try to find out how One-Drive can be used for synchronisation, so as to back track the sequence of actions that would have been used.
Many thanks again.

[arthurk]

Although I use Family Historian, I only have it on one computer, and as I don't use OneDrive at all, I wouldn't know where to start with the synch question, though Isabel's suggestion to isolate the computers seems a good one.

As for getting yourself back into the file, do you have any idea when the problem occurred? You mentioned that it's present in your recent back-ups, but presumably you don't have any older ones? And have you looked to see if there are any snapshots that predate the problem? (In the menus, File > Project Window > More Tasks)

The Family Historian User Group's Knowledge Base has a page on working with two computers, including a section on OneDrive - it's somewhere I've never needed to go, but there might be something useful there:

https://fhug.org.uk/kb/kb-article/synchronisation-of-fh-configuration-and-data/

[Isabel H]

Aceh,
 
If the files on your laptop are still intact, and it remains offline, a copy made by FH on it should, in theory, have the unaltered data. It's worth a try.

To make absolutely sure the file can't sync and update in the meantime, first pause sync on your desktop computer by right-clicking the Onedrive icon, and in Settings choose Pause Sync.
Then open the laptop and do the same on it, or disconnect it from the internet.

On the laptop, open the FH project window, select the file, then More tasks and Copy Project (Entire Project).  Save the copy with a new name.  Once that's done, open the new file to check it.

If it is the original version with you as Root, when your computers are allowed to sync again (which may take some time for the complete project file), if I'm not mistaken, it should appear in the project window on both.

[Aceh]

Morning Isabel,

I must admit that I had no idea about pausing the synchronisation, but thanks to you I do now!

What I did, (having taken my screen shots of all the facts relating to me from the Laptop as I said before). I closed down the Desktop.Then moved the Laptop as far as I could from the Desktop, which is in a small front bedroom upstairs, and plugged the Laptop in at the far corner at the back of the through-lounge downstairs. I then loaded some new data onto the Laptop, to encourage it to send this to the Desktop, then I left it overnight. Next day I turned on the Desktop and moved the Laptop to sit beside it and switched on.
The next morning the original situation was restored, both computers said the same thing, and I was again the root person with ID No 1.
 
 Success!
 I'm still scratching my head as to how the situation came about in the first place!


Many thanks for your assistance.