How to create a group of ancestors of X?

RootsMagic
,
1

I’m trying to create a stripped down GEDCOM for DNA, with only one sub-branch of my family. I know I’d use tools to delete a group but I’m not clear how to creat a group that contains “all ancestors and their descendants of person X”. Any suggestions?

2
  • In the Groups tab, + to create a new group
  • Name the group, choose Rules Group, click Set rules
    • to add a rule, choose Ancestors
  • highlight person X and click Select button
  • choose ancestors and descendants of ancestors. pick a large number for number of ancestor generations and an even larger number for number of descendant generations, click OK
  • Click Save and your group is made
2 Likes
3

Is there a version that works with RM9?
Most of those options don’t show up.

4

Sorry, I gave you the RM10 way of doing it. It’s a little different in RM9, but it’s still doable. And by the way, the way both groups and searching work have been greatly enhanced in RM10. It’s a good reason to upgrade if you get a chance.

RM9 had groups where the criteria could be saved, but the saved groups in RM9 had many less features than do the saved groups in RM10. So in RM9, you will have to do this as a simple group.

  • In the Groups tab, + to create a new group
  • Name the group, choose Free Form, and click Select People
  • Navigate to person X and highlight them
  • Click Mark and select Ancestors of Highlighted Person
  • Choose Ancestors and Descendants of Ancestors. Set Generations of ancestors to a large number and Descendant Generations to an even larger number. Click OK.
  • Click Select
  • Click Save and your group is made
5

That didn’t work the way I expected. It took all the ancestors of the selected person AND that person’s descendants as well. I didn’t want to delete myself, just my father’s side. (I guess I need to unlink myself first?)

Is there a way to also remove the descents-by-marriage? I end up with a zillion unlinked individuals, that had married into my Dad’s line.

Ultimately, I’d like to end up with a tree of just the descendants of a targeted individual and their descendants for a DNA comparison.

6

I took your requirement quite literally - all ancestors and their descendants of person X. You and your descendants are part of your ancestors’ descendants.

If you do not want all the descendants of all the ancestors, you can do some unmarking. Having marked all such people, you can then unmark some unwanted lines. It’s actually a a good bit easier to do so in RM10, but it’s possible in RM9.

The basic idea in RM9 is that after marking ancestors and their descendants and before clicking on Select, you can navigate to somebody else such as yourself and unmark that person and their descendants. You can do that for any number of people whose descendants you do not want.

I’m not sure what you mean by descents by marriage. The spouses will be included and they are not descendants. But the descendants of the spouses are still descendants. Do you mean descendants of the spouses from any other marriages they might have had?

If you do not want the spouses, the only way I know of to do it is to go to each most distant ancestor in turn and mark their descendants without spouses. Unfortunately, the marking that marks ancestors up and then descendants down does not include the option to mark descendants without spouses on the way back down. This is true in both RM9 and RM10.