12. GEDCOM DATA TRANSFERS

CREATING A GEDCOM FILE

GEDCOM is an international standard that defines how data is transferred from one genealogy application to another. Authors of different applications have implemented the standard each in their own way. Always take a backup copy of your Sukujuttu data before using GEDCOM to make sure that you can resume to the original data.

Transferring data with a GEDCOM file works best between two Sukujutut applications. The data to be transferred can be defined in a number of ways. Creating a file enables you to transfer family data from one genealogist to another. Using Sukujutut, you can create an ASCII file named suku.ged that is used to store data about the persons and the families to be transferred. The parents of a spouse are included, but siblings and other spouses of the spouse’s parents are excluded. You can transfer either all persons or the descendants or ancestors of selected persons (max. 18). Family relations are retained in the data transfer.

Sukujutut creates an error log file named suku.txt when reading the GEDCOM data. Read through the log. After reading the GEDCOM data, print a Problem report in Sukujutut with all other additional options, excluding the According to the youngest option. The main person in the Central window must be a member of the family, like you yourself or one of your children.

If the GEDCOM data transfers fail, and you wish to start over and remove all persons and data from Sukujutut, delete the suku.idx, nimet.idx, synthaku.idx, kuolhaku.idx and perheet.idx files and start again. This will remove all data, including manually entered data and corrections. The most secure way to return to the starting point before the GEDCOM data transfer is to use the backup copy to restore the original data. The File menu in the startup window of Sukujutut, in which you enter the password, contains the command to restore a backup copy.

IMPORTING A Gedcom FILE

Always make a backup copy before doing a GEDCOM data transfer to be able to start over, if necessary.

Sukujutut reads in GEDCOM data received from another genealogist. At the beginning of the GEDCOM transfer, you can do a comparison of times of birth. Correct dates of birth are compared with those of the persons in the family file, and persons born on the same day are displayed. You can interrupt the GEDCOM transfer after this comparison, if there are several persons with the same date of birth. Carefully verify the data before doing the transfer. If a lot of the persons in the data are the same as in your data, removing these double entries and reconnecting the families takes a lot of time. Sukujutut uses the GEDCOM data to update its own data and combines text and source data, if so required.

In the beginning, the application prompts you to define the location of the GEDCOM file. It then transfers the persons and their family relations in the file. During the transfer, the suku.txt error log is created if errors occur in the transfer.

COMBINING TWO FAMILIES THROUGH gedcom

First, two terms: Main family = the family to which you are going to bring more data. "Additional family" = the family or part of a family that you are going to add and connect to the "main family".

Remember to create a backup copy of your main family, to which you can return if the transfer is not successful. After that you can start:

- Open the additional family.

- Select as the main person the person whose descendants or ancestors you are going to transfer.

- Select Misc. > Export to GEDCOM.

- The selected person is displayed in the dialog box that opens. Select the form of the transfer: “Descendants” transfers the selected person with the spouse and descendants, “Ancestors” transfers the ancestors of the selected person, “Ancestors and descendants” transfers both ancestors and descendants of the selected person. You can replace the selected main person with or add to the list beside the main person the numbers of other, ”scattered” persons to be transferred, in which case the names of these persons are also shown in the dialog box. Select the additional data to be transferred. You do not need to select the No unknown and free check box if the transfer takes place between two Sukujutut applications.

- NOTE! If you also choose to transfer Photos or Sound files or both, Sukujutut creates a subfolder named ”Gedobj” to the folder of the additional family and puts copies of the pictures and sound files in this subfolder. If you save the “Suku.ged” transfer file on a floppy disk to be transferred to another computer, place the ”Gedobj” folder, if any, to the same folder with the ”Suku.ged” file.

- After defining all the settings, click Start.

- Close the “additional family” and open the “main family”.

- In the “main family”, select Misc. > Import GEDCOM file.

- In the folder of the “additional family”, find the file named “suku.ged” and select it.

- If you are transferring data between two Sukujutut applications, click Start.

- Sukujutut shows the number of persons to be transferred. Click Yes.

- Two windows open next to each other. On the left is the window of the main family, and on the right, the window of the additional family. Sukujutut has found a person that has the same date of birth in both families, and prompts you to define whether it is the same person. Verify the data, and if it is the same person, click Same person. Sukujutut replaces the person in the ”main family” with the person in the “additional family” and connects the person with his/her connections to the main family. When starting the GEDCOM transfer, you can select how Sukujutut will deal with person and family notes and source information. This data either replaces the corresponding data in the main family, or it is written to complete the existing data of the person in the main family.

- After all the persons have been verified and stated the same or different persons, Sukujutut shows the number of persons to be transferred. Click Yes if everything is OK. You can cancel the transfer by clicking No.

- Sukujutut processes the transfer and then states that the transfer is completed. By clicking OK you can display a log file, which is not an actual error log, but a report on what was done during the transfer. Print the log.

- After printing the log, the main family added by the additional family is displayed on screen.

- The printed list contains the numbers of those persons that were changed or got new connections. You can use the list to verify the data, and then the transfer is completed.