Recording Strays and Potential Relatives

[Vicki D.]

I would appreciate advice on how to use Reunion to compile info on people who may not be related to my family (i.e., with a similar surname but no evidence of a direct connection.) Obviously, I need to conduct more research to see if these strays or potential relatives are actually blood relatives, and since they are not linked to my direct line at this point, I'm not sure how to do this with Reunion. I appreciate the help.

Vicki D.

[theKiwi]

For me I put them in my main file. Each family is a separate little entity within the file - not at all related to me so far, but sometime in the future - who knows.

To get started with this, click on the Edit menu and choose "Add Unrelated Person" then choose the gender. This allows you to start another family within the file that is not linked to anyone else in the file.

Others will tell you that they maintain a separate file of these people, and then move them to their main file when/if a connection is found.

It's probably one of those "6 of one, half a dozen" of the other situations.

Roger

[Vicki D.]

Thanks Roger. I'm a little hesitant to put the strays into my family files, but I guess potential connections can get overlooked otherwise.
Vicki D.

[kyuck]

Thanks Roger. I'm a little hesitant to put the strays into my family files, but I guess potential connections can get overlooked otherwise.
Vicki D.
From my own personal experience it was best to keep all my "potentials" in the main family file. Otherwise, as you say, connections can get overlooked.

[Bob White]

I guess that I'm the conservative in this crowd but I don't add anyone to my main file unless I can connect them. I store the strays the really old fashioned way --- on paper in a manila file folder! :)

[David G. Kanter]

I guess that I'm the conservative in this crowd but I don't add anyone to my main file unless I can connect them. I store the strays the really old fashioned way --- on paper in a manila file folder! :)I join the majority in the replies to this thread (and, to my knowledge, elsewhere in ReunionTalk) about putting them in one's main Family File--and hope Vickie D. Sticks with her openness to consider doing so. While I'd be the first to acknowledge that neither way is necessarily "right", I believe, Bob, that the "lost opportunities" and, if applicable, the recording of proven "failures" with apparently related persons warrant their inclusion in a main Family File. (My earlier post (http://www.reuniontalk.com/showthread.php?t=589#post2665) went into greater detail on my thoughts on this matter.) But as I said in that earlier post, each person's mileage may vary, so more power to you if your approach works best for you.

[jane in l.a.]

I would appreciate advice on how to use Reunion to compile info on people who may not be related to my family...I put them in as it is easy to find them later and review them. Go to FIND >Anything> then in the popup window, click the up/down arrows next to "Presets". In there will be a choice for "Unlinked People".

[Nick]

I 'flag' them as 'Stray'. This allows me to obtain an immediate listing of all the 'strays'. Very useful!

[marnen]

Flagging strays is an excellent idea! I will have to do this for the few I have. I have been wondering about this very problem...finding unlinked people doesn't work for me, since the strays are linked to each other.

[Vicki D.]

Following the sage advice of this list, I've started entering my strays into my Reunion family files. It has forced me to organize my info that was previously in separate files, and look at it more carefully. Low and behold, I've already linked one stray to my family! I've also flagged the strays as suggested. Thanks again for the advice.
Vicki D.

[Judd Stiff]

I understand how to use the Find->Anything preset "Unlinked People" to locate indivudual "strays" in my data. Is there an "easy" way to find those stray two-generation families (unlinked to anything else) that are floating out in my data? I put them into the database knowing they might not be related before understanding that I could/should flag them as strays, now I want to find them again and flag them.
Judd

[theKiwi]

I understand how to use the Find->Anything preset "Unlinked People" to locate indivudual "strays" in my data. Is there an "easy" way to find those stray two-generation families (unlinked to anything else) that are floating out in my data? I put them into the database knowing they might not be related before understanding that I could/should flag them as strays, now I want to find them again and flag them.
Judd

I think this will work.

to get started, click on Find menu and choose Mark ------> Unmark Everybody

This will make sure no body in the file is marked

**Start with yourself and do a

List ------> Relatives ------> Identify

and Identify everybody who is related to you. Then click on List. In the resulting list, using the menu at the bottom left choose

Mark everybody in List

Repeat from ** above for your wife, and anyone else you can think of who might be related to a lot of people that aren't related to you. (For example in my file of 15,489 people, I'm related to 5,965 of them. I also have the data file of a relative of mine included in my file. She is related to 5,768 people - approx 3000 of them are also related to me but the remainder are not.)

Each time you get a found list, in that list choose "Mark Everybody in List" - DO NOT unmark anyone during this process.

Once you've done the identifying based on people related to people in your file, it's time now to identify the spouses, parents and children of those you've already marked.

To do this you need the Find Anything window - Command-A.

Set up the following search in the People tab.

Attributes ------> [Person Marked] [No]
AND
Spouse ------> [# Marked Spouses] [More Than] 0

Before you run this find, click on the Presets menu at lower left of the Find Anything window and save the Preset as you'll need it again and again and again. I called this one "Unmarked Spouse of a Marked Person". Now click on Find... and then in the resulting window of results, click on the Mark menu at lower left and choose

Mark Everybody in List

Open Find Anything and set up this search

Attributes ------> [Person Marked] [No]
AND
Children ------> [# Marked Children] [More Than] 0

Again save this as a preset before you run it. I called this one "Unmarked Parents of a Marked Child" Now click on Find... and in the results window click on Mark at lower left and choose

Mark Everybody in List

Open Find Anything and set up this search

Attributes ------> [Person Marked] [No]
AND
Parents ------> [# Marked Parents] [More Than] 0

Again, save this preset before you run it. I called this one "Unmarked Children of Marked Parent". Run this Find and again "Mark Everybody in List" the results.

Now it's tedious to run each of these 3 presets over and over and over again until each test reports no results found. What this is doing is moving out from your group of marked people, one generation at time an marking people who are already marked by going both up the generations and down the generations and getting the spouses.

Once you've done all this, you should have a number of marked people that is getting "close" to the total number of people in your file. In my file I ended up with 14,402 people marked out of 15,489.

Now you could stop here and use the following...

Options ------> Set Flags...

Create your flag for Strays if you don't already have one, and then choose the radio button for "Set" and the radio button for "Unmarked People" and click on Set.

Or you can do the following

From the Find menu choose Marked Sets ------> Save Marked Set. This will save the set of all the people you'v so tediously marked.

Now do a Find Anything

Attributes ------> Person Marked = No

In the resulting list use the Mark menu to "Unmark Everybody in Family File, Mark Everybody in List"

This essentially "flips" the mark to those who didn't have it already. Now you can use the Arrow keys or Tab key to move through the marked people and just check that they are truly strays. If they're not a "stray" then unmark them from the family card. Once you've done this

Options ------> Set Flags...

Create your flag for Strays if you don't already have one, and then choose the radio button for "Set" and the radio button for "Marked People" and click on Set.


Whew!!!!!!!!!

[David G. Kanter]

I understand how to use the Find->Anything preset "Unlinked People" to locate indivudual "strays" in my data. Is there an "easy" way to find those stray two-generation families (unlinked to anything else) that are floating out in my data?While on anyone in your family, how about doing a Find->Mark Groups, choose the Unmark tab, select the "People Linked to ____" option, enable the "Mark Everybody First", and click the "Unmark" button.

While that won't limit what's left Marked to just the 2-generation "stray" families cited in your query, it should give you every "stray"--whether individuals, couples, or any-number-of-generation families.

[theKiwi]

While on anyone in your family, how about doing a Find->Mark Groups, choose the Unmark tab, select the "People Linked to ____" option, enable the "Mark Everybody First", and click the "Unmark" button.

While that won't limit what's left Marked to just the 2-generation "stray" families cited in your query, it should give you every "stray"--whether individuals, couples, or any-number-of-generation families.

Gee David you need to get up earlier and post here sooner in the morning LOL

Of course that works, and in my file no matter who I start from that I know is in some way linked to me it returns the exact same number of matches as my convoluted method above - 14,402 out of 15,489.

And what's worse, I now seem to remember Greg (?) pointing this out on some other thread which I apparently forgot clean about too.

Cheers

Roger