Genealogy Chat

Hi,

This seems such a trivial question, but I can't find a button or link to do it on the GR site ...

I have just (re)loaded my tree onto GR from a GED file, but when I click on "My family tree" it homes in on one of my ancestors (as it happens, the earliest one with my family name).

Is there any way I can set the 'home' person to someone else ?

Thanks.

Previous threads suggest that you cannot do it yourself.
You have to ask GR to do it for you.

Jim - thanks for the very prompt reply.

I guess, in that case, I'll live with it. It seems a pity that, for all the good things about GR, some of the simple requirements aren't dealt with adequately.

Cheers.

Best thing to do if you have not allready is to buy a offline tree programme like family tree maker or roots magic.
Edit See that you probably all ready got one.

You can't change the home person with FTM (at least, not with the 2006 version).

You can do it with PAF, which is free.

You on the most recent Roots magic.

Thanks for all the inputs.

To give the background:
I have 2 trees on Ancestry and exported each separately as GEDCOMs - then imported them into FTM 2009, merging the two. Confirmed the home person was set correctly then exported the whole thing as a new GEDCOM and imported this to GR. Home person was then not who I expected it to be.

I have since tried re-importing the combined GEDCOM into FTM as a new tree - home person is correctly set, so I assume the GEDCOM is ok too.

Regards.

Probably Genes then.

If you merge on FTM then make sure that you start with your own tree and merge the others into it, otherwise you will end up with someone else as the 'Home' person when you export a file.

I have not been able to find any way of changing the home name in FTM, so how do you believe you are checking this?

Hi,

If merging in the wrong order were the only problem, then I would surely end up with the home person from the 'other' tree - and would probably have realised what I was doing wrong.

Though setting the home person might not be possible with FTM 2006 I'm using FTM 2009, which does support this.

I'm now wondering whether GEDCOM 5.5 actually 'has' a home person (or even a 'current' person)as a distinct entity. It might simply be that most software treats the first person listed in the GEDCOM file as 'home' and/or 'current' - the person I want as 'home' is the in fact the first in the GEDCOM file.

Regards.

I have this problem with my tree, and I've been able to fix it with PAF. This uses Gedcom 5.5, so I assume that isn't the problem.

From personal experience, I can say that merging in the wrong order DOES cause a problem when uploading the file to GR. I haven't yet sussed out why this is or how the 'new' home person is re-defined in the merged file.

I suspect there is something in the gedcom format which defines the home person, but again, I haven't sussed out what.