Gedcom

[Frank Zwolinski]

Hello All,
I have never produced a GEDCOM and so far have not had the need. So when a friend asked me about Reunion, what it will do and will not do, I was not able to answer his question about how GEDCOMs are handled, if like me, one only uses "Free Form" sources. So if anyone has such an experience, I would appreciate your thoughts, or at least a place to direct my friend who is about ready to convert from a PC to a Mac.

Thank you,
Frank

[s1xc00k]

Re: Gedcom

Hello All,
I have never produced a GEDCOM and so far have not had the need. So when a friend asked me about Reunion, what it will do and will not do, I was not able to answer his question about how GEDCOMs are handled, if like me, one only uses "Free Form" sources. So if anyone has such an experience, I would appreciate your thoughts, or at least a place to direct my friend who is about ready to convert from a PC to a Mac.

Thank you,
Frank

Hi Frank,

Reunion will be able to read your friend's GEDCOM via the File > Import > GEDCOM menu. Depending on what software produced the GEDCOM, some of the tags (see explanation of what a tag is below) within it will either be recognisable by Reunion or if not, it will simply show a label with a prefix of *New, see image attachment.

If your friend knows what this is, he can type over the description, e.g. the _EMPLOY tag is from Ancestry and description would be "Employment". He could also edit the GEDCOM file and maybe copy and replace _EMPLOY with OCCU which is the GEDCOM tag for occupation, a more standard GEDCOM tag..

The GEDCOM standard is not always followed completely, extract from Tim Burton "How standard is the GEDCOM "standard"? Alas, although the standard permits the use of custom data fields for a genealogy program's own use, many programs abuse the standard by using the standard data fields in non-standard ways. Such programs appear to assume that the same program will be used to import the GEDCOM file as exported it."

From the Reunion manual relating to GEDCOM import;
For each field, Reunion will make its best guess, based on the tag and the data in the GEDCOM file. However, as explained before, GEDCOM data transfer is often replete with ambiguity.

What Is a Tag?
A GEDCOM tag is a short word that identifies a piece of information in a GEDCOM file. If you were to look at a GEDCOM file in your word processor, you'd see lots of lines of text. Each line begins with a number and a tag that identifies the contents of the line. This example shows the Birth and Date tags:

1 BIRT
2 DATE 2 Oct 1820

Generally, Reunion is very good with how it handles GEDCOM imports. I suspect that most of the sources being imported would have a free-form type associated with them. Maybe create a new blank family tree and import your friend's GEDCOM and see the results.

Regards,
PC

[s1xc00k]

Re: Gedcom

...see image attachment.

Forgot to attach the image

[Frank Zwolinski]

Re: Gedcom

Hi PC,

And thanks for the import information, however, my main question is, as is my case, I only use the "Free Form" source. How would these be exported in a Gedcom?

Frank

[s1xc00k]

Re: Gedcom

Hi PC,

And thanks for the import information, however, my main question is, as is my case, I only use the "Free Form" source. How would these be exported in a Gedcom?

Frank

Apologies for the misunderstanding; free form sources will work ok and the GEDCOM tag will be TEXT, e.g. see below. The @I1@ is for the first person called test and it has one freeform source @S1@ and the freeform test is test123

0 HEAD
1 SOUR Reunion
2 VERS V10.0
2 CORP Leister Productions
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 DEST Reunion
1 DATE 6 DEC 2013
1 FILE My Family File
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
1 CHAR UTF-8
0 @I1@ INDI
1 _UID A2CD3951675C4AACB1275691AF8D0616C90D
1 NAME test
2 SOUR @S1@
1 SEX M
1 CHAN
2 DATE 6 DEC 2013
0 @S1@ SOUR
1 TEXT test123
1 CHAN
2 DATE 6 DEC 2013
0 TRLR

Regards,
PC

[AE Palmer]

Re: Gedcom

Hello All,

// cut //

... if like me, one only uses "Free Form" sources.

// cut //

Thank you,
Frank

Frank,
While using

[Frank Zwolinski]

Re: Gedcom

Thank you PC and Arnold,
I think I should clarify what I actually do in creating sources. When I said I only use "Free Form" sources I may have misspoken. What I actually do is create a source using Free-Form Text rather than the various source fields as it gives me better flexibility. When I pick the source type from the Add Source Pull Down menu, I usually pick Free Form just to start, however I then change the type when I have finished writing the source. So my original question should have been, "If using Free-Form Text in a source will it create problems when creating a GEDCOM?"

Thank you both for the responses.

Frank

[s1xc00k]

Re: Gedcom

...So my original question should have been, "If using Free-Form Text in a source will it create problems when creating a GEDCOM?"

If using Free-Form Text in a source will it create problems when creating a GEDCOM?

No.

In my opinion there will be no problems in creating the GEDCOM using free-form as you described. The other program or website should be able to interpret it, as free form entries will use the TEXT GEDCOM tag.

The major issue with GEDCOM is that various software programs uses customised tags that are not part of the GEDCOM 5.5 standard. The TEXT tag which relates to the free-form entries you are making is part of that standard (see ** below);

Source Record(s)
0 @<XREF:SOUR>@ SOUR
1 DATA
2 EVEN <EVENTS_RECORDED>
3 DATE <DATE_PERIOD>
3 PLAC <SOURCE_JURISDICTION_PLACE>
2 AGNC <RESPONSIBLE_AGENCY>
2 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>>
1 AUTH <SOURCE_ORIGINATOR>
2 [CONT|CONC] <SOURCE_ORIGINATOR>
1 TITL <SOURCE_DESCRIPTIVE_TITLE> ** Your free form entries will use TEXT tag
2 [CONT|CONC] <SOURCE_DESCRIPTIVE_TITLE>
1 ABBR <SOURCE_FILED_BY_ENTRY>
1 PUBL <SOURCE_PUBLICATION_FACTS>
2 [CONT|CONC] <SOURCE_PUBLICATION_FACTS>
1 TEXT <TEXT_FROM_SOURCE>
2 [CONT|CONC] <TEXT_FROM_SOURCE>
1 <<SOURCE_REPOSITORY_CITATION>>
1 <<MULTIMEDIA_LINK>>
1 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>>
1 REFN <USER_REFERENCE_NUMBER>
2 TYPE <USER_REFERENCE_TYPE>
1 RIN <AUTOMATED_RECORD_ID>
1 <<CHANGE_DATE>>

Regards,
PC

PS The example I posted earlier with the wording TEST123 used that method you described.