Exporting to FTM

[Teresa C]

With the release of FTM 2019, I'm thinking again about whether it makes sense for me to have my tree on 2 platforms. There are pros and cons to both - the ideal application for me would be the love child of the 2 - however last time I contemplated exporting my tree from Reunion to FTM, it all just got too hard and as a long term, loyal and generally satisfied Reunion user I decided to sit with the status quo.

I'm curious to know if anyone out there has done this, and if so how - and was it successful?

Thanks!

[MarvinWelborn]

Absolutely. I keep my Main Tree on Reunion, but also Copy to these other platforms...each platform has their own unique features.

[B Jansen]

I still use Reunion as my main program, but the indifference (hostility) to the GEDCOM standard for exporting is really frustrating. On the plus side, Reunion is remarkably customizable for many things including GEDCOM tags. I've made an effort to get those where I want them, but I haven't tackled the sources yet.

[theKiwi]

I still use Reunion as my main program, but the indifference (hostility) to the GEDCOM standard for exporting is really frustrating. On the plus side, Reunion is remarkably customizable for many things including GEDCOM tags. I've made an effort to get those where I want them, but I haven't tackled the sources yet.

Any perceived failing or hostility of GEDCOM need two players for this to occur - perhaps Reunion on the exporting side and something else on the incoming side.

For example - I have Reunion set up with sufficient fields and GEDCOM tags for them that I can transfer the entirety of the information on this TNG page (with one exception), including all my sources fields, to TNG with a GEDCOM export from Reunion. Reunion allowed me to set up all sorts of note fields and give them GEDCOM tags, and TNG is flexible enough that I can configure it to deal with every one (with one exception) of the GEDCOM tags that are in the incoming GEDCOM file.

http://lisaandroger.com/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I16&tree=Roger

• The one exception on the webpage that didn't come from Reunion is the information that makes the pins on the map different colours to represent different levels of jurisdiction. That is done inside TNG.
• The one exception in the GEDCOM file that TNG can't handle is Reunion's Child Status, which Reunion does export to the GEDCOM file.

On the other hand, getting stuff from Reunion to say RootsMagic, or Family Tree Maker is another whole different kettle of fish, but not entirely Reunion's fault.

Roger

[B Jansen]

Roger, yes, if you're getting at there are pros and cons with all of the different options, yes, of course. And yes, with lots of customization, we can correct a lot of Reunion's at best indifference to the GEDCOM, but not all. See my comments on the other wish list thread on categorizing dates as "about," "calculated," or "estimated." There is no good reason Reunion shouldn't allow that. Yes, that's minor, but the inability to share events and mark the same one to include more than one person (except husband and wife in marriage) is really frustration: witnesses, godparents, et. al, are important tools for FAN research.

[Bob White]

............but the indifference (hostility) to the GEDCOM standard for exporting is really frustrating.....................a lot of Reunion's at best indifference to the GEDCOM, but not all. See my comments on the other wish list thread on categorizing dates as "about," "calculated," or "estimated." There is no good reason Reunion shouldn't allow that.........

I'm putting on my old dog hat here in saying this as I've been on ReunionTalk since its inception in the early 90's and the daily email discussion group that preceded that. I am about 99% positive that Leister staff shares your frustration with the GEDCOM standards as they relate to whichever application they use to create Reunion and its capabilities (or lack of same). Over many years of discussions here about GEDCOM, I have only detected lots of good customer help and some times explanations of problems that didn't have a solution due to the capabilities of the GEDCOM standard.

By the way, in addition to being one of the longest users of Reunion, I can claim likewise about FTM. In Jack Minsky's recent email, he said it was FTM's 30th birthday and it started out as a DOS program named Banner Blue. Well, if you were to look at my oldest printouts, you will find they were output from Banner Blue. (It was a tiny company that one guy and his wife ran from their home in Hayward, California.) I do my family tree in Reunion. I use FTM as my media library. Any media that I attach to the tree that I maintain on Ancestry.com synchs to FTM on my Mac. I find this to be a very efficient way of getting media to my Mac and accessing the images as needed.

[B Jansen]

I'm putting on my old dog hat here in saying this as I've been on ReunionTalk since its inception in the early 90's and the daily email discussion group that preceded that. I am about 99% positive that Leister staff shares your frustration with the GEDCOM standards as they relate to whichever application they use to create Reunion and its capabilities (or lack of same). Over many years of discussions here about GEDCOM, I have only detected lots of good customer help and some times explanations of problems that didn't have a solution due to the capabilities of the GEDCOM standard.

By the way, in addition to being one of the longest users of Reunion, I can claim likewise about FTM. In Jack Minsky's recent email, he said it was FTM's 30th birthday and it started out as a DOS program named Banner Blue. Well, if you were to look at my oldest printouts, you will find they were output from Banner Blue. (It was a tiny company that one guy and his wife ran from their home in Hayward, California.) I do my family tree in Reunion. I use FTM as my media library. Any media that I attach to the tree that I maintain on Ancestry.com synchs to FTM on my Mac. I find this to be a very efficient way of getting media to my Mac and accessing the images as needed.

Bob, I've been using Reunion since I left Gene (a PowerPC program, I think it was hypercard), and yeah I remember the early days of ReunionTalk. While GEDCOM itself has limitations, I'm raising inexplicable limitations only in Reunion in this thread. None of your comments address those.

[eric.vanbeest]

Gene… oh my… that brings back memories of how I got started in the first place. :-)

Gene was a regular PowerPC application, not a Hypercard stack. For a shareware application trying to manage a complex inter-related database that genealogiy needs, it fared quite well. But if there’s just the one of you trying to maintain the codebase and faced with moving from Classic Mac OS to OS X… I am not surprised it "went away".

All teary-eyed history aside, I do believe there is an argument to be made to make a minor revision in Reunion’s logic and semantics, such that it differentiates between 'About' and 'Estimated'. I see no reason, though, to include 'Calculated' – since there is no standard way to transfer the method within GECOM.

[theKiwi]

All teary-eyed history aside, I do believe there is an argument to be made to make a minor revision in Reunion’s logic and semantics, such that it differentiates between 'About' and 'Estimated'. I see no reason, though, to include 'Calculated' – since there is no standard way to transfer the method within GECOM.

CAL = Calculated is one of the GEDCOM date modifiers defined in the GEDCOM standard.

http://wiki-en.genealogy.net/GEDCOM/DATE-Tag

Roger

[B Jansen]

Gene… oh my… that brings back memories of how I got started in the first place. :-)

Gene was a regular PowerPC application, not a Hypercard stack.

Thanks, I wasn't sure, memories are hazy that far back! (I was paper and pencil, then some hypercard system--now I'm trying to remember, then Gene before Reunion)

[B Jansen]

CAL = Calculated is one of the GEDCOM date modifiers defined in the GEDCOM standard.

http://wiki-en.genealogy.net/GEDCOM/DATE-Tag

Roger

CAL works in all of the other programs I tested it on (though I won't violate rules here and name them)

[Bob White]

.........Re: Gene was a regular PowerPC application, not a Hypercard stack.........

Not familiar with Gene as I switched from Banner Blue on the original IBM personal computer to Reunion on my first Mac (a IIsi). At that point in time, Reunion was a Hypercard stack. I believe it was version 3 or 4 that it moved out of Hypercard. (Bradley: I wasn't trying to address the limitations.)

[B Jansen]

(Bradley: I wasn't trying to address the limitations.)

Ah but the limitations and specifically Reunion's inability to add shared events (witnesses and godparents, eg, to a wedding, baptism, etc.) is what has me thinking I've outgrown the program (which makes me sad, it's been my main/sole program for a looooong time).

[John M. Leggett]

Ah but the limitations and specifically Reunion's inability to add shared events (witnesses and godparents, eg, to a wedding, baptism, etc.) is what has me thinking I've outgrown the program (which makes me sad, it's been my main/sole program for a looooong time).

Unfortunately, ALL genealogy applications have limitations. None can handle everything in exactly the manner everyone wishes. If they could, they would be so complicated that hardly anyone would use them. So when you find another that does not have the limitations you feel Reunion has, be sure to check out what it won't do that Reunion easily handles.

John M. Leggett