to gc: It seems to me you may have the best of both worlds right at hand. I finally managed to get MSaccess, but would never claim to know very much about it, although I have many years working with other databases, more lately Lotus Approach, but...
You have already completed the big step in matching your <olddata> by RIN#. In addition to the RIN#, if you open your <legacydata> with MSaccess, there is also an ID#, which is similar, but further separates marriage/family data for each marriage. This may sometimes apply to your linking. *Just maybe* you might try copying your <olddata>.mdb to <olddata>.fdb and see if it might open in Legacy. It may be necessary to create additional fields in <olddata> which match those in your <legacydata>, and even that may not work. Perhaps the folks at Support can give you guidance...?? If the above won't work, copy your <legacydata>.fdb to <legacydata>.mdb, mainly so that you don't disturb your present Legacy data. Opening this new .mdb file with MSaccess, you can then import your <olddata> into <legacydata>. It will involve much field-matching, but a whole lot quicker than retyping or copy/pasting all your years of work, which would be your last resort. Once completed, just copy <legacydata>.mdb to <newlegacydata>.fdb and your new database should then open with Legacy. Obviously a lot of work ahead, but you should end up with very worthwhile results! good luck! RonKZ ************************************************************** I too have this "problem". I have a separate MS Access database containing literally thousands of scraps of information collected over 30 years. As a retired IT professional I started computer genealogy on an old IBM PC Jr when storage was on 5 1/4" floppy disks. Genealogical programs, the few that were available then, were incapable of storing vast amounts of data without winding up with a stack of floppies. Therefore I started this external collection of bits/pieces of information on one of the earliest releases of a LOTUS database, migrating several years ago to the more robust MS Access platform. The genealogical programs I used prior to switching to LEGACY had been DOS based or still lacked the storage options/capabilities of LEGACY and modern day genealogical programs and the (almost) limitless storage afforded by multiple gigabyte hard drives and CD/DVD's. Thus I continued to add my source information to this MS ACCESS database application. Now I'm "stuck" with all this external information on hundreds of individuals and have been wondering if, or how, to go about tying the two together. Each ACCESS entry is keyed to the Legacy individual by the RIN#. Each application works fine but there's no electronic direct connection between the two. For a given RIN# I get the family relationships from Legacy and the sources backing up pertinent facts in Legacy from the Access database. I'm not inclined to enter all these bits and pieces into Legacy at this stage. Each Access entry, in addition to the RIN# identifier has a unique key that COULD be entered in the NOTES section of the Legacy entry. But the ideal situation would be to have Legacy and this Access database linked electronically so that viewing an individual's RIN# in Legacy would also have available for display all the supporting information from the Access database. Any comments, suggestions, ideas would be welcome! gc Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
