Okay I finally got around to stripping the living people out of my
gedcom and uploading it to the Gedcom section of the group: have a look
at it when you have some time.

Here is how I was told by a member of the Family Tree Maker lysis group
to Strip the living individuals from a FTM gedcom:

Make a backup of your file just in case Murphy's law strikes!

go to File, preference, privatize
or
File, privatize, depending on which version you have

file, copy/export the privatized file - name it something that you will
recognize as being a COPY of your file - like temp-privatized-file

Un-privatize & then close your regular file
-------------------

now this part is very very very important:

Open the privatized COPY!!! of your file

Make sure you are working with the privatized COPY!!! of your file

make a custom report that includes everyone with the word "Private" in
Birth, Death, Marriage, etc. field

people, delete individuals in Report

file, copy/export the file into a gedcom. . .since this is from the
privatized copy that has now just had all the individuals that were
marked private DELETED from the file you can create a gedcom that will
be free of any living individuals.

joseph