As a newcomer to using RM 10, I am exploring the breadth of its facilities, and one area is causing some difficulties. I have downloaded several trees from Ancestry (less media of course) and successfully imported them into RM10. I now seek to create groups which will closely match the original ancestry trees created by other family members over the past decade.
The “Group” facility would seem to be the way to accomplish this, but there appears to be only two separate methods for creating a “Group”
Individually selecting every individual separately (not practical due to numbers involved).
Using “Rules” to define those individuals to include.
The “Rules” method seems to be the way forward, but determining the search parameters is proving problematical. I want to include the induvial and their direct ancestral line plus his siblings and 1st cousins. Having created a list of those individuals, is there any facility that will allow me to view a list of these individuals?
My previous family history software allowed a group to be created by combining both the options provided by RM 10.
The Index tab in the sidebar can be filtered by a group. Hence, filter the index tab in the sidebar by a group, and you can see your group.
People List View in the main part of RM’s screen can be filtered by a group. Hence, filter People List View by a group, and you can see your group.
Many reports can be filtered by a group. For example, run an Individual List report. As you are running it, filter it by a group and you can see your group.
Haven’t played with this too much BUT it does appear that you can create a group by combining both option–so say I want John Smith–his descendants and siblings-- so I would pick his father ( known or unknown) and descendants and spouses by using Rules- criteria–once I had that group say I wanted the Ancestors of his wife-- then I would edit the group by a Simple search—once I had my group the way I wanted, then I would color code it
My original reply was in the context that you had already created the groups and simply wanted to see them. So that’s the answer I gave.
But it occurs to me that you might also be wishing for advice on how you can create the groups in the first place by using RM.
It is correct that RM supports two separate ways to add and remove people from groups. One way is to do it manually, and the other way is to do it with rules. The two ways can be used together. For example, you can make a group with rules and then manually add and remove people from the group.
You can also re-apply the rules without needing to type the rules in all over again. That can be important because RM doesn’t apply the rules to new people in your database at the time you add them. So if you have a group of your ancestors and add some new ancestors, then you would need to do a one click refresh of the group to get the new people added to it. However, if you combine rules and manually adding and removing people, a re-application of the rules is likely undo all your manual adds and removes. As a sample size of 1, I virtually never manually add and remove people from groups. I always do it with rules.
RM’s rules groups are very flexible. For example, you can make a group of all your ancestors or a group of everybody born between 1900 and 1910. There are lots of different ways to do rules. So it’s not like rules are just one thing you can do. You can do dozens of different things with rules. Did you have a specific question about how best to apply RM’s rules groups to making your specific groups?
Thanks for the assistance with the flexibility of creating Groups. I am please to know that you can combine the two methods, soothing that is not made clear in the help file or in Bruce Buzbee’s book. Creating a group using rules looks the first step, but there are instances when I may need to suppress one or more individuals before creating a GEDCOM file for uploading to my website for selected viewing. Perhaps this would be better accomplished using the search function.
When I have created the Group that meets my requirements, then I assume that adding events etc. to any record in that group will not require the use of the refresh function. Only the addition or removal of an individual record would require the refresh function.
My primary reason for creating several Groups, is to artificially recreate the tree for the primary families that were downloaded from Ancestry. Each group would, in addition to the direct ancestors, require the addition of the siblings of the source person plus their immediate families e.g. cousins of the source. This could require some difficult search parameters.
As I indicated, I am only just getting into RM 10, and I realise that I and constantly expecting RM 10 to provide all the facilities of my decade’s old software with hopefully some improvements. If it cannot do that, then I am wasting my time. I am therefore keen to explore many of the RM 10 features which will take time and I’m over thirty years older than I was when I started my genealogy journey so time is not on my side.
It’s fine to remove a person from the group manually before exporting a GEDCOM based on the group. Another approach would be to add a new rule to the group to remove the person as a part of the rules. It’s personal preference which way is best for your purposes.
Correct. The group only defines people. It doesn’t define their facts. So if you make a group of people then add a new fact to one of the people and then export a GEDCOM of the group, the GEDCOM will include the newly added fact.
I’ve just watched the video of using groups and confirm it does contain all the options that I can currently envisage. A great deal to learn but it will take time.
You MIGHT want to also view the video on Search Rules as you can create a group using saved searches as well as all these other options when you click on MARK under simple search for groups
Note that it say HIGHLIGHTED PERSON–make sure you highlight the person
So in this case you could do a Saved Search or just create a group directly by picking the person and doing first their direct ancestors then go to the father of the person and do descendants for 2 generations— that should get you the siblings of the person and his nieces and nephews–if what you actually want is the Cousins of the person, you would have to go to the grandfather
I would like to thank all those who have offered suggestions on my initial query.
I have only had the RM10 program for three weeks and already I have accepted that it contains some very powerful and flexible tools to assist me. I would seriously suggest that those marketing this product make it clear to those who purchase it, that the videos describing the major function should be considered as part of the package. The help file and book only scratch the surface, and do not make the learning curve any less steep for the new user.
The creation of Groups with the ability to combine other groups and searches, gives the user almost unlimited possibilities in meeting their needs. I shall continue to experiment with these functions so that I can use them to my advantage.
