exporting or editing a gedcom with limited information

[trebor]

That sounds good, Alexander. I think including siblings would be useful, especially for an Ancestry DNA linked tree where the "Shared Ancestor Hints" process uses the sibling information as part of the analysis. Hopefully, you will not get a 50-50 split for/against siblings

I agree with Phil that it would be useful to have the option to include siblings.

I am "on the fence" regarding baptism/christening and burial; I use them to support my "before" birth/death dates where actual dates are not known but could be considered unnecessary.

Phil

I do think that including baptisms and burials would be essential as, like Phil, I have used these in my existing cut down tree to support the lack of actual birth and death data.

 

[trebor]

What may be an error though is that, taking my 4 x gt grandfather as an example, where there is no marriage data for his marriage to my 4 x gt grandmother the marriage entry has appeared 3 times date "unknown" on each occasion and the marriage to his 2nd wife "No Name" has appeared with full details. There were more than 3 children from the marriage so it is not related to that.

All direct line marriages appear to be included 3 times - with or without data.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Thanks for feedback here's a new version with those bugs hopefully squashed and an option to include siblings.

On baptisms and burials that's covered by the existing option in the options panel to include baptisms and burials as alternatives to births and deaths where the birth or death is missing.

 

[trebor]

Thanks Alexander - all seems OK and as expected except that the blank death still contains "bef 18 Dec 2018". This seems to be an FTA function as it appears in FTA prior to the export - is there an option to change this that I have missed?

Re baptisms & burials I would prefer not to use those dates to replace the actual birth or death so for me the option to show them separately would be good - not sure how big a task that is for you or if it would be of interest to any other user!

 

[PhilGee]

On baptisms and burials that's covered by the existing option in the options panel to include baptisms and burials as alternatives to births and deaths where the birth or death is missing.

"where the birth or death is missing" is, in my opinion, inadmissible as they are the only guaranteed events. Using the "before" qualified dates of baptisms/burials for births/deaths is acceptable in most circumstances; though I have an 1843 birth with an 1886 baptism Every birth/death in my trees has an associated date using qualifiers where the actual date is unknown ( ABOUT, BEFORE ... ) often based on the GRO or County indexes

Phil

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Precisely Phil. Which is why that's an option and not cast in stone. It is useful for different types of report to sometimes consider a baptism date as better than nothing for other types of report it's inappropriate thus the decision lies in the hands of the users as to what to do.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Thanks Alexander - all seems OK and as expected except that the blank death still contains "bef 18 Dec 2018". This seems to be an FTA function as it appears in FTA prior to the export - is there an option to change this that I have missed?

Re baptisms & burials I would prefer not to use those dates to replace the actual birth or death so for me the option to show them separately would be good - not sure how big a task that is for you or if it would be of interest to any other user!

I’m not seeing the before today myself. Might be an option you have set differently to me?

The baptism and burials are checkbox options in general settings so just untick before running report.

 

[KC4]

I suspect Family Historian either does, or could do, what you want.

Yes, I am sure "Family Historian" would serve your data in whatever way you require...............Although I have used the FH program for some time, I cannot say I have made use of all possible variations as yet.

 

[Bob Spiers]

NEW but I think appropriate under this old heading.

Can someone more experienced in using FTM help me with trying to achieve a cut down gedcom from my main Tree to export to Ancestry.

The problem is I wish to create a Tree which for DNA purposes I will be managing for an adoptive male cousin who has taken out an Ancestry DNA test. I therefore need to have his Tree included under my own subscription on Ancestry. He does not share my bloodline as his mother was adopted (likely quite informally) in 1917 and brought up as siblings to my father and his brothers.

My main Ancestry Tree synced to FTM shows his mother with her bloodline researched as it does her spouse (my cousin's father). I just need to extract these respective bloodlines without including my own.

I propose to start with both sets of his bloodline grandparents. Maternal : E & J. Paternal: A & N. This is to avoid the complication of his mother and father being depicted as family in my Tree so I propose to just add these manually later.

I have researched both his Maternal & Paternal lines back about 6-8 generations (direct line only) and so extracting them is a far easier method than starting from scratch. I would like to make the maternal grandmother 'E' the Tree person and proceed from there. Bearing in mind what I say about the bloodline being totally separate from my own, is that enough information for someone to explain how best to go about it and filtering out BOTH his Paternal & Maternal bloodlines and saving them as a new Tree?

 

[Helen7]

Hi Bob

If you select a person you want to be the 'root' of the tree, then create a filter in FTM to include just this person's ancestors, you can then create a gedcom containing just the people in that filtered list, which you can then upload to Ancestry. I've done this in my tree and it's pretty straightforward, as follows:

1. Select your cousin's maternal grandmother (or his mother to include both his maternal and paternal ancestors) in the 'People' list your tree, click on the 'Filter' button (below the list of names).

2. In the window that appears, click on "Ancestors...". A number of options will be shown in a pop-up (e.g. whether to include spouses and descendants), select what you want, click OK, then the Ancestors list will be shown.

3. After checking it has selected the people you want (you can manually add or remove anyone from the list), click Apply. Then save the filtered list under some meaningful name (click Save... under the list).

4. Now go to Export... (under the FTM File menu) and select Output format as GEDCOM. Under 'Individuals to export' select the name of the filter you've just saved. You'll see the people listed again so you can check it's the right folk. Tickboxes allow you to select what info to include in the gedcom, e.g. Media files etc. (they're all ticked by default but you can untick any of them). Then click Export and save the .ged file wherever you like on your computer.

5. You can then upload the gedcom to Ancestry in the normal way (and set up synchronisation if you wish), and link it to your cousin's DNA test.

Hope this helps!

EDIT: I should have mentioned to set up sync you'd need to save this as a separate tree in FTM, but that's probably obvious!

 

[Bob Spiers]

Thanks Helen, I just knew it would be you first in the queue and I recollect you have helped before on this subject, which I further recalled worked and I have my 'how to do' notes saved from that occasion. However for whatever reason those procedures did not work this time. But with the step by step you have just posted I am sure this will achieve what I seek. In any case I will get back if I encounter a problem but for now thank you and let you know your help is much appreciated.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Hope this helps!

Yes Helen it did and even as I followed your instructions I dawned on me where I was going wrong and that was the seeming innocuous ..."select the name of the filter you've just saved'. That was of course hidden with a down arrow and so I had assumed it would select the filter automatically but it therefore defaulted to something previously filtered, if you know what I mean. Either way the end results was not what I wanted, and of course nothing after that worked.

I also wanted to make the root person his mother (as you suggested to combine maternal and paternal ancestors) but that fell foul of the fact that, although adopted, she was linked to my own line as a prospective sibling of my father. This resulted in dragging in my own bloodline and although I could have filtered them out, it was easy to go back to the Grandmother and then filter people in. So, again following instructions, I selected each of the other three grandparents in turn, clicked on 'Ancestors' and up they came. The end result is what I wanted, a basic bloodline.

I duly produced a Gedcom and uploaded it to Ancestry. Although I had not taken my previous efforts far enough to actually save in FTM (thank goodness as it turned out) your timely reminder caused me to import it into FTM where it now resides. I will not sync for now as it is still in its skeletal stage and needs padding out with manual input. Whether I do this in Ancestry or FTM I had yet to decide but eventually it will be sufficient for me to do a first pass at checking results when in.

I have also agreed to manage his wife's DNA results and, as she is his third wife and new on the scene I need to rely on her forwarding me some handwritten FH charts. She tells me they were laboriously researched by her late husband. I will likely manually enter the information into Tribal Pages and eventually produce a Gedcom to add her Tree to Ancestry. I will also carry out some elementary research to check the content holds water. At least it takes my mind of the dreaded Pandemic situation.

Your help was invaluable of course.

 

[Helen7]

Your help was invaluable of course.

Glad to be of assistance. Let's hope your cousin - and his wife - get some useful DNA matches for you to investigate.

 

[jorghes]

The other way to do it is when you click on export in the file menu there is an option for "Selected individuals" and if you click that and find the person that you want as the root, then there are filter options for "all ancestors" and "all descendants" of the original chosen person.