Importing GEDCOM from FTM, spaces in notes

[Edward Barnard]

I am a new user of Reunion and a long-time user of Legacy Family Tree (Windows) and Family Tree Maker (Windows). I'm attempting to import a fairly large (41,000 name) GEDCOM file that came from a cousin. It’s from Family Tree Maker for Windows, 13.0.380, “DEST FTW”, “CHAR ANSI”.

After the import, spaces have been inserted in the middle of words in the "notes" fields. Technically, the CONC tag (in the GEDCOM) file is being treated as if it is a CONT tag. Example:

0 @NI00001@ NOTE
1 CONC That the Strongs of England, Ireland and Scotland are of a different orig
1 CONC in respectively, would seem to be manifest from the variety of their famil
1 CONC y-crests. The crest of the Strongs of Ireland is a lion rampart, azure, s
On import, the result looks like this:

That the Strongs of England, Ireland and Scotland are of a different orig in respectively, would seem to be manifest from the variety of their famil y-crests. The crest of the Strongs of Ireland is a lion rampart, azure, s

I start by creating a new family file. It offers me the GEDCOM import. The import screen allows me to choose the character set; I've tried both Windows and ANSEL.

What is the procedure that gets the Family Tree Maker notes field interpreted correctly in a GEDCOM 5.5 file?

I am using the latest Reunion (11.0.11) on latest version of Sierra (10.12.2).

[donworth]

Re: Importing GEDCOM from FTM, spaces in notes

I seem to remember having this problem too - possibly when I went from Sierra Generations to Family Tree Maker on Windows. Just some ideas... What if you loaded the GEDCOM into a text editor and changed all occurrences of "1 CONC" to "1 CONT" and then import the file into Reunion? Or does that make it worse? Are there trailing blanks on the CONC lines that ought to be removed? You might want to check to make sure you don't have CR LF as line ends. Mac's use only LF for a end of line.

EDIT: For what it's worth, this was my experience when I went from Windows FTM to Mac Reunion in 2008. Not sure how much of this still applies, but... http://www.bishir.org/ftmtoreunion/

[Edward Barnard]

Re: Importing GEDCOM from FTM, spaces in notes

Don, thank you for the detailed notes. Eight years later they have value! I'm also a long-time user of TNG. You're right, this is really a case of data migration as opposed to data import. That is, it's a rare (for me) one-off adventure. I'm quite comfortable with reprocessing GEDCOM files.

It looks like Reunion (as is TNG) is much better these days at interpreting FTM output. This might not go too badly now that you've confirmed an approach to take.

[Edward Barnard]

Re: Importing GEDCOM from FTM, spaces in notes

I examined and imported a GEDCOM file generated by a recent (2015, just before Ancestry dropped support) version of Family Tree Maker. This is the same database but filtered through a modern FTM version. It generates the Notes field differently. Rather than breaking in the middle of a word with the CONC tag, it breaks on a space, leaving a space at the end of the CONC line. Reunion does import that notes field successfully.