Barbara, Is the one on the desktop a folder or is it a link to your data folder? If it actually a folder with just the familytreewip.fdb and user files associated with that family file and it has the most current file information then you can just copy all those files to your Data folder for Legacy. Then open legacy and search for the file you want to open. Then check your Legacy options and specify how you want to open legacy. It is probably set to open the last file opened. When you are working on Legacy the changes are always in the file you are working on where ever it is located. So when it closes if it doesn't ask for a backup it will be the same folder that you opened it from, if you happen to have that file in a different folder and open it from that folder you will not see the changes as they are actually in a different file. When you back up a file either by requesting a backup or when you close and it asks for one make sure the path is where you want it before you click save. The newer versions actually append the date and time to the backup so if you have several with the same file name you will know which is the latest backup. It is always best to keep your working family files in the same location so you know where your up to date files are. If you need to store them on another drive then I would recommend just saving the backup file of it on another drive and when you want to work on it then you can restore the family file to your working directory. I use google drive and only store my backups to that drive. I also store a copy of the legacy installation file, registration file, and user files for Legacy in there own folders on the google drive. I have both Legacy 7.5 and 8 on my computer so I have a folder for each version on the google drive for the corresponding programs.
If you have different updates to your family file in more than one folder and you want to get them all into one file and they are copies from the same family file then you should be able to use the intellishare options under the find duplicates merge function. Open the oldest file and merge the changed files into it. from the help file: Here is how IntelliShare works: Form a research group of two or more people. (Each must be using Legacy.) One person in the group is designated as the "Keeper of the Records" (Keeper for short). This person keeps the master Family File. Legacy automatically marks all the records in the Master Family File with a serial number that uniquely identifies each individual. The Keeper now sends a copy of the Family File to all the other people participating in the group. Any or all members of the group can make changes to existing records, delete or unlink records, or add new records to the family file. The Keeper can also make changes and additions to the master file. After an agreed upon interval of time, all members of the group return a copy of the family file to the Keeper for merging and reconciliation. The Keeper then follows this procedure: Import all copies of the family file into the master copy (after making a backup of course). Press the Merge button and choose Find Duplicates. >From the Merge Options window, click on the Special Searches tab and choose the IntelliShare option. Press the Continue button in the upper right corner of the Merge Options window. Legacy searches for all records with matching IntelliShare values and automatically merges those that have exactly the same information. At the end of this process Legacy displays the records where one or more persons have made changes. Legacy also looks at all surrounding links when deciding to merge. If the parents, spouses or children are different in any way, the two individuals are displayed along with a message describing the situation. All these messages are also saved in a file called MERGE.LOG. Legacy offers to display this file at the end of the merge process. The only records the Keeper has to look at and merge together are the ones that have been changed by someone in the group. At the end of the merge process, a list of any newly added individuals is displayed. After the merge is complete, the Keeper sends a new copy of the family file back to the other group members for more changes and additions. Legacy's IntelliShare greatly reduces the drudgery involved when going through the typical match-merge process needed to combine two or more files. hope this helps, Russ -----Original Message----- From: Barbara Ford Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2016 2:05 PM To: legacyusergroup@LegacyUsers.com Subject: [LegacyUG] Help, please I have been using Legacy for years, and although still using version 6.0, because I haven't done any serious research work since I was using that version, I thought I was very "on" to how the backups work. In my mind, there is an "on the fly" backup that puts data in C:\Legacy\Data\familytreewip.fdb (with familytreewip being the "name" of my data). Then when I exit the program, when it prompts me to back up, I also do that, and that is a zip file that I keep in my documents folder. In the last three years, while I have not been actively involved in research, we have lost three of our parents, and I have updated Legacy with all that information. Today I have discovered that the data has been going to different places (do not understand how that could have happened). I discovered it (and maybe this will help with troubleshooting) when I tried to use Legacy Charting Companion and it wasn't bringing in the death information from Legacy, just posted a couple of days ago. I have now figured out that there is a familytreewip.fdb folder on my desktop. Some of the data I have entered in the last three years is there (visible when I open Legacy from that file), and when I go to C:\Legacy\Data\familytreewip.fdb, the most recent data is NOT there (and therefore not coming in to Charting Companion). Once I open Legacy from one location or the other, it opens it back up from there the next time I open Legacy. So, now there is one "version" of Legacy that has recent death information, and then the one out on C:\Legacy has data updated two years ago. I do not know what to do, and right after the death of my father-in-law is NOT a good time for me to realize something is wrong. Mainly, I don't know how to bring it together, and I don't know how to tell where it is actually going when I exit NOW. I do periodically copy the contents of c:\Legacy\Data to an external hard drive, and I have done that fairly recently. But even if I open the Legacy program from there, and discover that the only thing I have to re-input is my father-in-law's death information, I'm so confused now about where it all goes when I exit. I guess my main confusion is why it is sometimes going to the desktop file (and why is it even there?) and not to C:\Legacy. I am so sorry to be so unclear, but can anyone help me? I'm not so concerned about the Charting Companion--that's just what helped me discover that data is not going where I thought it was, when exiting. Barbara Ford Sent from my iPad Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://support.legacyfamilytree.com Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
