Hi Don, What I did was go in and open a 'New' file. I entered the names of a husband and wife from my huge file. Then select 'Append, Merge" from the 'File' window This will bring up a window with all the names in the file you are trying to condense. One window is labeled 'Available Individuals", the other will be blank. Type in the name of a person, say husband or wife, you want to move into the new file, in the middle area, between the two windows are 8 buttons, they are labeled >, >>. Ancestors >, Descendents >, Find >, <, <<, and finally Find<. Ancestors or Descendents depending or which way you are going with the individual you chose, and click on that button. It will move selected individuals to the previously clear window, labeling at the top "you have selected these individuals and then another line will tell you how many you have moved into that window. Go back to the 'Available Individuals" window and type in the name of the husband or wife remaining and repeat the procedure. This will give you 'XX' number of names in the "included window, depending on how much history you have on those two individuals. Click okay. You may get a message that 'no matching individuals are available to merge, or something of that nature, don't panic, just hit okay again. This will bring up another window, with several options, you can select one, or just hit 'continue' The next window will give you the chose to 'force a merge', 'Delete. individuals', just click on 'continue' again. This will complete the transfer of your new file. You may have some clean up some individuals and make a couple of individual merges, but this will get you there. If. you add the names of the parents of the couple you have chosen, when you append, they may merge without you having to 'clean up'. Good luck. Virginia in Seattle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don L Warf" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2005 7:33 AM Subject: [VALEE] Reduce the size of my tree > Hello listers, > > Is there any one that has FTM that can help me with this problem???? > > I would like to remove an individual and his ancestors from my family > tree and create a separate family tree file for him. I want to do this > to shorten my database by having two separate files. > > Thanks in advance for anyone that can help me. > > Don Warf > > > ==== VALEE Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the list send your message to <[email protected]> for individual list messages; <[email protected]> for digest messages. Then put the word unsubscribe in the subject line and send your message. > > ============================== > View and search Historical Newspapers. Read about your ancestors, find > marriage announcements and more. Learn more: > http://www.ancestry.com/s13969/rd.ashx > >