Genealogy Chat

Hi Following on from the problem below, I have received the GEDOM on disk via the post. The problem being that everytime he sent the file over as an attachment on the email, for some reason it deattached itself and came over in the body of the emai. It now works as I have imported it into Legacy very easily, everything being hunky dory. The problem now is that having created a new GEDCOM file with all my information on, I come on to Genes and try to import it onto this tree. You go onto the Import program and browse for the appropriate file, having made sure that my information on Legacy and Genes corresponds, you then press import. Nothing seems to happen and there is nothing else on the program to help me. I logged out and then came back in but my tree hasn't changed, I thoufht my updated tree would be there but ....................... Where have I gone wrong? Little Lil Hi Before anyone says anything I know I must be thick. Someone has kindly sent me an email and in it they say they have sent me a Gedcom. But all I can see is a long list of numbers with some letters. He says in it, to copy it to a file, so I saved it to a Word file. When I go into Legacy and go through their instructions to copy it over, it says it needs a Gedcom file. How do I change the information on the email into a Gedcom file?????? Please please someone help me, there are over 200 of my family on it and I can't wait to view them. Many thanks Little Lil

Hello, A lot of people make the mistake of not having their extensions showing on their computer so that they can't tell what file they have. Firstly I suggest you tell us which Windows Operating system you are using: XP, 98, 2000 or Me (Millennium Edition)? Once I know this I can go through the process of getting you to have your extensions showing and then we can really see if he has attached a gedcom file or not. By extensions I mean this. A Word file is a .doc An Excel file is a .xls A photo is usually a .jpg but can be .jpeg or .bmp A music file can be an .mp3 An animated picture is normally a .gif Hope this gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. Cheers, Horatia

Hi Horatia Many many thanks for coming back to me so quickly. I am using Windows XP, or should I say attempting to use it. Little Lil

Hi, Follow my instructions carefully. If you aren't sure about anything then come back. Don't press any buttons other than those I tell you to. Firstly, do you know where the Control Panel is located on your PC? If you go to START, you should see an option to click on Control Panel. When you have found your way to the Control Panel, we then need to know if it is displayed in Classic View or Category View. Look at the sidebar. It will say: 'Switch to Category View' or 'Switch to Classic View', depending on which you have selected at the moment. You can swap between these two views; so this is nothing to worry about as you just need to press the same link again to change it back. Let me know how you get on with this. This is a handy thing to know anyway so you won't be wasting your time. Cheers, Horatia

Hi Horatia I am currently in Classic View Little Lil

Hi Lil, In the Control Panel, click on Folder Options. The icon to represent this is a folder with a tick on it - do you see this? If so, click on it. Then you should see three view tabs at the top - General - View - File Types. We are interested in the VIEW tab only. Do you see all this? Cheers, Horatia

Hi Horatia I am in the VIEW option page Cheers Little Lil

Hi Lil, Look for the command: 'Hide Extensions For Known File Types' is this check marked? If it is check marked, remove the check mark and then click 'Apply' then OK. (DON'T CHANGE ANY OTHER SETTING)! Once you have done this, go back to the e-mail and see if you can see the extension of the file the bloke has sent to you. If it is a gedcom file it should say something like this: JONES.ged Let me know how you get on. Cheers, Horatia

Hi Horatia I didn't have to press anything as there was no marker against 'hide extensions'. Had a look at the email, he sent a photo as an attachment .jpg but everything is just in a list of names and numbers along the left hand side of the page. There is nothing with .ged along side it. Would I be able to copy and paste this in a new file and save as rooney.ged to get it to work. Cheets Lil

Hi Lil, I thought it didn't sound like a Gedcom but wanted to make sure before I said anything. You have two choices. You can either go back to him and ask him to send you a gedcom (perhaps he doesn't know how to do it) or you can print out the .jpg and if it is readable and viewable you will have to manually input the information into your family tree programme (if you wish to do so). A long winded process I'm afraid. Do you have any family tree software on your PC? You can explain to him that if he had sent you a gedcom it should have the extension .ged and not .jpg. It sounds like he has sent you a descendants report. Ask him what family tree software he uses and then we might know what to suggest. Cheers, Horatia

Hi Horatia I'm sorry for taking so long to come back to you. The gedcom has been emailed over to me 3 times as an attachment but when it arrives for some reason it is included in the main body of the email. He is going to send it to me on a floppy via the post. I am on tenderhooks as apparently it has 207 members of my family on it that I didn't know about, which means they will all need varifying by me. Many many thanks for your time and trouble. Take care Little Lil

What e-mail software is he using and which e-mail software are you using: Outlook Express? AOL? Outlook? Incredimail? There are so many that it is hard to understand what is going wrong. I suspect your e-mail programmes don't appear to be talking to each other properly! If he is sending you a .jpg and you are using Outlook Express as your e-mail software, the .jpg WILL show in the main body of the e-mail. If he was sending you a gedcom file it wouldn't! I hope he sends a gedcom file on the floppy disc otherwise you will be back in the same situation. Cheers, Horatia

Another idea - can he compress the ged file into a 'zip' then when its attached it might STAY attached & not get embedded into the email. when you get it, you will have to 'unzip' it. (Dead easy, don't worry!) But ask first if he can 'zip' it.

Vicky, It appears that he isn't sending a gedcom file in the first place but a .jpg file!!!!!! It wouldn't make any difference if he compressed a .jpg file it would still be a .jpg file - he needs to send a gedcom file and if he doesn't know how to do that then not a lot is going to be seen! Cheers, Horatia