Genealogy Chat

Where are your Acton's Heather? Dea x

You should be able to select exactly what information you want to include in your gedcom. I recently used the tribalpages website and uploaded my tree to that, when I went in to look at it, there were addresses, phone numbers, rumours about people not having the same fathers etc etc - all the stuff that I had put in the notes on my main tree - that clearly dont need to be advertised to the world. On my program, when you select export gedcom, before it creates the file, it gives me the option to include or exclude pretty much anything. It must let you just send names and birth information.

Ive started adding all possible births/death/marriages, IGI records and baptisms that people have kindly sent me onto the Notes area of my FTM2006 - but though done with good intentions - how will I ever remember that I have. Oh yes, I have had that too, triumphantly finding a bit of info, rushing to add it to FTM and there it is all along - maddening. It hasnt helped (should I complain?) that last week I had 3 new contacts and totally unconnected to each other, yet they all have connections in my tree through the same family line - So I have people contacting me about the Baizleys, the Actons and the Steers. Acton was the maiden name of my Baizley and Steers is her married name. So you can imagine how confusing all this info Ive received is. One lot leading off from the Actons, one from the Steers and one from the Baizleys (scream) and at one point back in the early 18th century all coming out of one couple - my GGPx5.

SNAP Heather, That's exactly what I do - then all the paperwork piles up and I have to keep going through everything all over again. I usually end up 're-finding' some of them on Ancestry months later, print out all the census's, get out my old paperwork, and find I already have them. Them I can't put them on until I have definite proof which means 'sitting on' all the paperwork again until I can get a cert or something to prove them !!!!! - SSooo confusing !!! What I have JUST started to do, which I think is a good idea is, if I am reasonably sure they are mine, I put the info onto a seperate 'little tree' on my FTM, so that when I get the proof, I can then just add them all in - I have one relative who I KNOW is mine, and have traced him and his wife back for generations but he has a very common name so it IS possible that I am chasing the wrong one, but, at least I have him there ready !!!!!!!!!!!! Dea x P.S. - THANKS to everyone for the info on Gedcoms, I think I will probably stick to entering them manually. - I will just have to be more organised and not have so many to add all at once. Dea x

I have had three solid contacts in the last week and I dont know if its me, but I am so confused over them all. I know I should sit down and look at all the messages Ive had from these contacts and work out all the connections but as soon as I do, I cant work out where they all fit. Dreadful this getting old stuff.

Hi Dea Well, I use Legacy (which is free) and it gives me the option when I save the file as a gedcom of what I want to include. So I can make anyone who is still alive just be shown as Living, I can mark individuals as Private if I want (sometimes I do that with those only recently deceased for the sake of their offspring) and then only show them as Private, and I can exclude from the export to gedcom all the notes that I put in about people - this effectively just leaves me with names, dob and place of birth. Marking individuals as Private is done on an individual basis, but then not exporting people marked Private, and suppressing details of living people and also all notes is just done by ticking one box and it applies to the whole tree. It is very quick. If you really cannot do these things in FTM, what you could do, since I expect you are used to and fond of FTM, is download Legacy, export your FTM tree into Legacy complete, make the amendments in Legacy and then save it from there to a gedcom for you to upload. Sounds complicated but would not take very long. Then you can go on using FTM, but just take this route when you want to upload to GR. Having said that, I uploaded my tree on Friday night and it has got a bit mangled, making some totally false and very odd family relationships. I don't know why because I have uploaded from Legacy many times before with no problems. From what other people have said, GR seem to be having one of their periodic glitches with uploads at present. Tina

I find it easier to make a copy of my tree and edit out all the details i don't want to show , and then export a ged file from that

Dea I don't think that you can do it in FTM - you can't choose which facts are exported to your Gedcom, it automatically writes them all. There might be a workaround though - by editing the Gedcom before importing to GR: 1. Create the Gedcom from FTM 2. Open the Gedcom in Notepad 3. For each fact that you dont want to appear on GR, replace the fact ''tag'' with something that GR won't recognise: e.g. if you don't want death dates to appear, then from the Edit menu of Notepad, select ''replace''. In the ''find what'' box enter the string ''1 DEAT'' and in the ''replace with'' box enter say ''1 XXXX''. Then click on the ''Replace all'' button. 4. Repeat for all facts that GR recognises and which you don't want to appear. 5. Save the Gedcom in Notepad 6. Import to GR I haven't tried this, but it should work! At worst, you can only stuff up the Gedcom - in which case simply re-export from FTM and import the Gedcom as normal. Worth a try! Note: all facts start with a '1' followed by a space and then 4 characters. Richard

Thanks Debbie, I think I have not made myself quite clear. What I want to create is a gedcom which contains only the names of all my people + dob + where born. Is this possible? Dea x

Hi Dea, You can 'Privatise' you FTM file. This will hide the details of living rellies. Click on 'File'. Towards the bottom of the drop down list you will see 'Privatise File'. Do this first then create your gedcom in the usual way. If you want to actually 'remove' these people from your gedcom, or any others, you can manually remove any people you don't want in it by clicking on File, then Export File, then selected individuals. If there are only a few that you DON'T want in click >>, to put everyone in, then use < to remove the one's you want taken out. Hope this makes sense! Debbie

It drives you mad doesn't it Nell, Sometimes, I check my tree contacts in the morning and find myself thinking 'please don't let me find a match' - How sad is that? My trouble is - I am sure there is an easier way but I don't like to upload from my FTM because I don't want all the details in but I am sure there would be a way to take just the names, dob's and birth locations into a seperate file on my FTM and then just upload that ??? Instead, I input them all manually - It takes for ever. Any suggestions regarding the above would be VERY gratefully received. Dea x

Dea I've found a raft of rellies recently too, bunged them all into my PAF late last night and then I found I'd got some chap muddled up with his gt gt grandfather with the same name and had to disentangle them! nell

I've been on a roll recently and have found LOTS of rellies + I have been hoarding several for a while until I could PROVE them. It's all been coming together and today I thought I would add all the 'definites' to my tree! I have been 'at it' for about 5 hours (I'm sure there is a simpler way), and have added 87 new relatives. - I CAN DO NO MORE !!!! My brain an my typing fingers are no longer in communication, and me little mouse has got a mind of it's own! - Will do the rest tomorrow. (Tree's getting bigger though - feeling smug!) Dea x (VERY tired).

see below: