I use Brothers Keeper which I am sure is not as sophisticated as FTM. I have 20,000 individuals, many in family groups, but all on the one database. I search on first names and the resulting screen shows full names and date of birth which I scroll down to find the nearest matches. If I click on a name it shows all the basic data in an instant. I have a second reference field that I use for tree reference numbers. T1, T2, T3 etc. Up to T123 currently. Works fine for me. Ian -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ron Lomax via Sent: 09 June 2016 10:49 To: [email protected] Subject: [G] FTM/Organisation Advice Needed Please Hello All, I am relatively new to the concept of a one name study, but have been an amateur genealogist for many years. I would like to pick people's brains concerning how to organise and record the study. According to the WIKI, the most favoured family tree software is FTM, which I also use. I have upwards of forty sourced family trees. If I keep them in separate FTM files, then finding someone is a nightmare, as is checking for duplicates which may link two trees. If I merge all the trees into one FTM file, (some 7000 people), it is almost impossible to locate a particular person, even with birth and death years, due to the 19th century spawning hundreds of Williams, James', Johns and Charles'. I have to use trial and error, and if I do not have either a definite birth or death date, then I may go through each one and not know whether I have him recorded or not. FTM does not give me the option of showing places in the index. I thought of using the FTM Person ID with a prefix representing the tree the person comes from, but this is overwritten if you merge all the trees. There is no report within FTM which shows BMD dates AND place of birth/death, so I cannot export a list from each tree and combine them in an Excel table. I cannot help feeling that, if there are many people using FTM, I am either missing something or expecting too much. I have considered switching from FTM, but I like the interface better than either Legacy or RM, and would prefer to stick with it if I can find a way round my issues. Has anyone else found a solution to this problem, or have I to bite the bullet and use more appropriate software? Any advice would be much appreciated. Many thanks Ron Lomax _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message