File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 1 - Import

Over the past couple of days, I have been helping a Genea-Blogger with a brick wall. I thought that it might be worth some time to document the steps, and perhaps my approach for this type of problem, that is a Brick Wall.

Having worked with file sharing before, there are a couple of things that I like to do from the very beginning. The file sharing that is being used in this case is a GEDCOM generated by Roots Magic 4.

Last year about this time, I had done some testing with file sharing using a GEDCOM from Family Tree Maker to Roots Magic 4. I sent a GEDCOM file to another Genea-Blogger, who was at that point a potential "cousin". However, when my GEDCOM file was opened in RM4, none of my Citation information was brought into Roots Magic. That kicked of the BetterGEDCOM project. I did a lot of testing for that project, trying to show the issues that the GEDCOM process that made file sharing very difficult. I spent a lot of time documenting the information that is in my database, and for it not to show up, was alarming.

All that to say, is I know that there are issues, so when I receive a GEDCOM file I KNOW it want to "clean up" that file before I start to work on it. I want to document what I do, before I start to research with that file.


The GEDCOM file was emailed to me, I detached the email and saved the GEDCOM file on my computer where I know where it is. I then go to the Plan Workspace, New Tree Tab, and select the  Import from an Existing file. When the Import is selected a window opens where you navigate to where that file is on the computer.

The filename is put into the filename field at the bottom of that window, then you are asked to Name the Tree. In this case, I named it GEDCOM for Blog. This is the file that will be used to start the clean up process. This is NOT a clean up because of the Sender of the file, but for my own purposes. Some because of what the GEDCOM will do and some for some "standards" that I have found to work for me and my own research.

Just as a reminder, I am only looking for information to help with a Brick Wall. I am not trying to duplicate or create a new tree for the Genea-Blogger. Only, if there is such information, a record or two to help with the brick wall.

When the Continue Button is depressed the Import process begins.

The status of the import is see above. Note that at the 84% mark, there are 3 Errors. In reality, this file was a new file that I received this morning. The first file had 109 Errors. After some investigation by the sender, there were records in the first GEDCOM file that were unique to Roots Magic 4, but eliminating those unique records, were were left with 3 Errors. The sender and I did some investigating into the 109 errors as we both wanted to know what that was about. Which we did. (Unique Roots Magic Data).

After the import is complete a .LOG file is created to allow the user to see some details about the import.

This is the Summary, with some numbers, including the 3 Warnings. Clicking on the View Log File we see:

We had seen these same errors before, so they are not unique to Roots Magic. In reality, this is a pretty clean handoff.

The next post will show what the result is.

Learning: When I receive a GEDCOM file from another researcher, I use this process, especially IF I am considering merging this data into my own file.


Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington