PaulB writes...

Under the "My Genealogy File" tab, there are some people listed without blue stars that I know are direct ancestors. Why aren't they marked as such?

On 2005-03-26 4:15am GenSmarts replied...

Maybe you didn't tag the line you're thinking of, or the parentage relationships you know aren't recorded as such in the file you're analyzing (maybe you're analyzing an older file or some such thing)?

Here's an excercise that should help you figure it out: Since you have a specific line in mind, start with the person you tagged as the root, and work backwards until you find a case where a person is marked, but their mother or father isn't marked - that's the break in the chain. Look in the My Genealogy File tab at this last "blue starred person" and see who GenSmarts shows as their mother and father.

It would be nice if you would post what you discover, and if you think there's something not quite right, then post what type of file you're analyzing (PAF, FTM, etc.) and what version of GenSmarts you're using (HELP...ABOUT...)

On 2005-03-26 1:49pm PaulB added...

I found the problem (I use FTM). In FTM, I had a person with 2 spouses. The children of that person were attached to both spouses, one as "natural" parent and one as "step" parent. GenSmarts used the "step" parent to establish ancestry rather than the "natural" parent, as should have been the case. The only solution is to detach the children from the step parent in FTM. GenSmarts should handle this situation better.

On 2005-03-26 3:21pm GenSmarts replied...

For purposes of generating research suggestions, GenSmarts currently only supports the notion of a single set of parents for an individual. I believe in Family Tree Maker, those parents used will be whatever you have as the "preferred" set of parents. This same concept holds true for multipe anything - dates, places of birth, death, marriages, etc.

It sounds like you have the "step parents" set up as the preferred parents, rather than the "natural parents", so that's what GenSmarts used. So you shouldn't have had to drop parents, but rather change what you had as the "preferred" set. If GenSmarts is using another set of parents than what you have as the "preferred" set, let us know as that's something we should try to get fixed.

On 2005-03-26 3:38pm PaulB added...

In my FTM file, the natural parent was set as the preferred spous, not the step parent. It appears to be an error in GenSmart.

On 2005-03-26 3:55pm PaulB added...

In the FTM file, the natural parents were set as the preferred parents for the children, as well.

On 2005-03-26 3:56pm GenSmarts replied...

Ok, we'll test here and see if we can produce the same situation.

On 2005-03-26 5:50pm PaulB added...

I played around alot with a test file and couldn't reproduce the problem. I went back to the original file and finally detached the second spouse, then detached the stepchildren from the resulting spouseless relationship. Then I re-attached the second spouse, and re-attached the children as her step children. Went back into GenSmarts and refreshed. The direct ancestors are now shown correctly. Sounds like FTM has an issue.

Paul

On 2005-03-26 6:12pm GenSmarts replied...

We were able to create a file here that had a "non-preferred" parents showing up in GenSmarts, so hopefully we can figure out how FTM stores this info, and adjust accordingly.

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Tags:  Family Tree Maker  Family Tree Maker  

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