Importing Gedcom data from Reunion

Issues and Discussions surrounding Gedcom and iFamily
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PhilW
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Importing Gedcom data from Reunion

Post by PhilW » Wed Jun 30, 2010 8:18 am

Import from Reunion via Gedcom generally went well except for one significant problem. I have in Reunion many family (husband & wife events) which have not been loaded into iFamily. These are often "residence" events for the family. How can I import this information? I would have several hundred such entries.
Phil
Sydney, Australia

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Wed Jun 30, 2010 4:08 pm

Hi Phil,

I carried out a quick test and had no problem transferring from Reunion to iFamily a file including RESI events.

Two things to note:

1 Ensure you select the RESI option in the Reunion export facility.

2 The RESI events appear in the Event window in iFamily - make sure you are looking there.

You can check that the Reunion export includes the RESI event info by opening the .ged file in a text editor and searching for RESI. You should fins a number of lines for each entry.

When iFamily imports the data you can display a log of problems on import. This may show up something that has become corrupted.

Hope this helps - it will work.

Nigel

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Wed Jun 30, 2010 4:21 pm

Hi Phil,

A bit of further testing after re-reading your note where you talk of a Family residence. By this I assume you used the Mailing Address feature in Reunion.

If so, the GEDCOM error report from iFamily will include something like:


line 26. INDI._FPER, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, appended to Comments
line 27. INDI._UID, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, appended to Comments
line 38. INDI._FPER, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, appended to Comments
line 39. INDI._UID, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, appended to Comments
line 45. INDI._UID, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, appended to Comments
line 53. FAM.ADDR, tag not defined in Gedcom V5.5, record ignored
line 59. FAM._UID, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, record ignored
---------------------------
Unprocessed GedRecs follow
Unprocessed Custom Tags GedRecs (if any) are also in file UnprocessedCustomGedRecs.txt
---------------------------
line 1. 0 HEAD
line 2. 1 HEAD.SOUR Reunion
line 4. -> 2 HEAD.SOUR.CORP Leister Productions
line 5. -> 2 HEAD.SOUR.FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
line 6. -> 1 HEAD.DEST Reunion
line 8. -> 1 HEAD.FILE test
line 9. -> 1 HEAD.GEDC
line 10. -> 2 HEAD.GEDC.VERS 5.5
line 49. 0 @F1@ FAM
line 53. -> 1 FAM.ADDR Albert & Elsa EINSTEIN
line 54. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CONT The low street
line 55. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CONT Clapham
line 56. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CONT Bedfordshire
line 57. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CHAN
line 58. -> 3 FAM.ADDR.CHAN.DATE 30 JUN 2010
line 59. -> 1 FAM._UID 136DE84F04A94F3BAA39B8C1F04849945F94


Reunion is using a Custom tag for the Family address as it is not defined in the Gedcom standard used by iFamily.

If this is the case, then it is one for Warwick to add the ability to handle custom tags or for you to convert them to RESI events against one member of the Family (no I don&#39t know an easy way to do this)

Sorry for that.

Nigel

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Wed Jun 30, 2010 6:43 pm

Back again.

I have had a look at the GEDCOM 5.5 specification that iFamily is based on (v5.5.1 is a draft) and it says this about ADDR:

ADDR {ADDRESS}: =
The contemporary place, usually required for postal purposes, of an individual, a submitter of information, a repository, a business, a school, or a company.

It does not define it for use as an individual or family address in the way that you have (or rather Reunion allows) which is probably why it does not import - Keith was always very definite about using v5.5 rather than 5.5.1.

By the same token, v5.5 defines FAM as:

FAM {FAMILY}: =
Identifies a legal, common law, or other customary relationship of man and woman and their children, if any, or a family created by virtue of the birth of a child to its biological father and mother.

It does not appear to define additional info that can be associated with a Family.

Not much help, again, but unless the LDS issue an update to the GEDCOM specification that the developers can adopt it is likely to get out of hand when working cross platform.

Nigel

PhilW
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Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by PhilW » Thu Jul 01, 2010 1:11 am

Thanks Nigel for your replies. I&#39ll try to explain better. I&#39m definitely talking about RESI fields. In Reunion you can enter events relating to the Husband & wife (I call this a family) in addition to the marriage specific fields. I have hundreds of RESI fields relating to my family groups. I also use RESI on individuals and these RESI events have been transfered to iFamily ok.

Looking in iFamily Family tag then other marriage events I see you can add other events but the only ones mention relate marriage/divorce etc except you can add a Misc event but definitely no RESI. I also have other fields, a much smaller number, entered under family groups such as emmigration which probably haven&#39t come across either but I&#39ll have to check this up more thoroughly.

Perhaps I could change these family RESI fields to miscellaneous ones but this would be a major editing task as there are hundreds of them.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Phil
Sydney, Australia

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Thu Jul 01, 2010 6:40 pm

Hi Phil,

You can tell I haven&#39t used Reunion much. Now found the Family events section and the RESI tag.

It is the same problem, Version 5.5 of the GEDCOM specification does not define FAMily events of the type RESI so they are not imported into iFamily.

Warwick could address this by working to the 5.5.1 draft much as the Reunion coders have but that may cause more problems (Warwick may like to comment at some time).

Not sure of any way to move from Family events to Individual ones other than lots of hard work.

I cannot quickly see a way to find all the Family Residence entries in Reunion so that you could change them but it is clear that iFamily will skip over them at present.

Nigel


line 18. INDI._UID, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, appended to Comments
line 27. INDI._UID, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, appended to Comments
line 35. FAM.ADDR, tag not defined in Gedcom V5.5, record ignored
line 41. FAM.RESI, tag not defined in Gedcom V5.5, record ignored
line 45. FAM._UID, custom tag not recognised by iFamily, record ignored
---------------------------
Unprocessed GedRecs follow
Unprocessed Custom Tags GedRecs (if any) are also in file UnprocessedCustomGedRecs.txt
---------------------------
line 1. 0 HEAD
line 2. 1 HEAD.SOUR Reunion
line 4. -> 2 HEAD.SOUR.CORP Leister Productions
line 5. -> 2 HEAD.SOUR.FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
line 6. -> 1 HEAD.DEST Reunion
line 8. -> 1 HEAD.FILE My Family File
line 9. -> 1 HEAD.GEDC
line 10. -> 2 HEAD.GEDC.VERS 5.5
line 31. 0 @F1@ FAM
line 35. -> 1 FAM.ADDR Bill & Joyce Wiggins
line 36. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CONT The High Street
line 37. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CONT Toytown
line 38. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CONT New Jersey
line 39. -> 2 FAM.ADDR.CHAN
line 40. -> 3 FAM.ADDR.CHAN.DATE 30 JUN 2010
line 41. -> 1 FAM.RESI
line 42. -> 2 FAM.RESI.DATE 1 MAY 2000
line 43. -> 2 FAM.RESI.PLAC Outer toytown
line 44. -> 2 FAM.RESI.NOTE Tree house
line 45. -> 1 FAM._UID 9A5769F5691E4A57B635B62B63242E2B23CE

PhilW
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by PhilW » Fri Jul 02, 2010 12:39 am

Thanks again Nigel. Your comments related to the GEDCOM standard and draft standard clarify why the problem exists. I will have to give this more thought before I do anything. I believe these events are family ones and best kept that way and I would hate to have to add each family event to all the individuals involved and would mean a lot of duplication. Perhaps I could only place these family events with household "head". I&#39d have to find each family entry (500 odd families many with multiple events) so I&#39ll not rush into anything.

Perhaps Warwick might like to indicate if working to the 5.5.1 draft is being considered or likely in the near future.
Phil
Sydney, Australia

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Mon Jul 05, 2010 9:09 pm

Hi Phil,

<soapbox mode>
I understand about these types of events being Family ones as the family does live as a group for a time.

However, IMHO, the family is about the relationship of the people to one another and nothing more.

Even when the kids have grown up they are all part of the family but they no longer live at the same address.

So, how can you tell when a family event applies to all the members or just a few of them as they each leave home.

It may take up more disk space but, to me at least, it is more logical to input the events (such as RESI) for each person - and iFamily does give you a good way to make an event the active one and copy it between individuals (though it may no include RESI - must check that out).

I appreciate that you would have a lot of work to put in to convert from Reunion to iFamily with this unless someone could handle it programatically but it would be the same if you were to migrate to another family package such as MacFamilyTree (sorry to mention it in this forum).

Anyway, I understand your dilemma as I used to enter Census info in the Notes field (of MFT) and now have to work my way through the data looking up the references again to put the records as CENS events, OCCU & RESI. Oh joy.

</soapbox mode>

Nigel

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Mon Jul 05, 2010 9:28 pm

Hi Phil,

<helpful mode>
I just tried using GEDitCOM II which is a powerful .ged file handler and, although it was just a test file with one family, I managed to convert the Family RESI event into Person Events using a CUT from the Family group and a couple of PASTES into each individual.

Have a look to see if it is at all practical for your file - still a lot of work but it may be much easier than re-typing everything.

</helpful mode>

Nigel

PhilW
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by PhilW » Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:54 am

Hi Nigel

Once again thanks for your suggestion. I don&#39t know GEDitCOM IIbut will investigate.

regards
Phil
Sydney, Australia

PhilW
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by PhilW » Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:17 pm

Hi Nigel,

Have tried GEMitCOM II - nice program. I&#39ve hundreds of changes that would need to be made but comparing my GEDCOM from Reunion to a test one I created in iFamily I might be able to change my family RESI events into family EVEN in ifamily by making the following change

changing "1 RESI" lines that follow MAR lines in Reunion GEDCOM file to the following 2 lines
"1 EVEN"
"2 TYPE Residence"

I&#39ll change a few and see how they import into iFamily. I&#39ll let you know if it works.

regards
Phil
Sydney, Australia

PhilW
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by PhilW » Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:19 am

Hi Nigel (and anyone elso who might be interested)

Using GEDitCOM II I was able to, after quite a learning process, create an apple script which changed my family RESI records into family EVEN records with a TYPE "residence". I used an amended version of an Apple Script that comes with GEDitCOM which fixes problems in GEDCOM files created by Reunion. From GEDitCOM I exported my data to GEDCOM selecting multimedia option "GEDCOM embedded links" as this appears to ensured all notes associated with my records were retained.

So far I&#39ve only used a test data file and can see I&#39ll make further additions to the Apple Script to cover some other entries I have in my Reunion data.
Phil
Sydney, Australia

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:25 pm

Hi Phil,

Glad to hear you are making progress.

Not too sure on your use of the &#391 EVEN&#39 as there is an event of Residence the &#39RESI&#39

the standard in iFamilyforLeopard is:

1 RESI
2 TYPE Residence
2 DATE BEF 12 FEB 1884
2 PLAC 32 Winchester Street, York
2 NOTE @EN2133@
2 SOUR @S16@
3 PAGE Certificate copy MXE 772468
3 _TOPI Residence

where _TOPI is a special entry for iFamily.

Have you tried RESI rather than EVEN? Not sure if it matters too much if it works.

If you are successful in your import, others may be interested in the script you developed for the Reunion to iFamily migration.

Regards,

Nigel

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:32 pm

Hello again,

I guess, looking at the earlier post, it is because it is under the Family group rather than the Individual that setting to an EVEN works though I am not too sure why.

I will try the change in a test file later to see the impact as I would have thought it would still be hidden - I must be missing something.

Anyway, I&#39m glad it seems to be working for you but make sure you keep all the original files!

Nigel

NigelRichman
Posts: 327
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm
Location: Cornwall, England

Post by NigelRichman » Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:06 pm

Hi Phil,

Had a quick play and your proposed conversion to EVENT & TYPE works when GedITCom II adds the magic line

2 FORM LINEAGE_LINKED

Without that it fails to import any people. Not sure why but haven&#39t looked at the standard.

The residence does appear in the list under both people as a special event type (free form really) rather than a &#39genuine&#39 RESI - but that can only appear under an individual.

Without a lot more work in Apple Script to add the RESI block to each member of the Family your solution looks to be the best compromise.

The manual approach I have just tried is to find the RESI block under the FAMILY section e.g.
0 @F1@ FAM
1 HUSB @I1@
1 WIFE @I2@
1 MARR
2 DATE 3 MAR 1930
2 PLAC Happy Town
1 RESI
2 DATE 3 APR 1933
2 PLAC HomesVille

Cut the lines associated with the 1 RESI entry (all those with a higher line number - i.e. 2, 3, etc)

Find the entry for each individual listed (@I1@ and @I2@ in this case) and enter the CUT text for each one:
0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME Fred /Blogs/
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE 1 JAN 1910
2 PLAC Toy Town
1 RESI
2 DATE 3 APR 1933
2 PLAC HomesVille

&

0 @I2@ INDI
1 NAME Freda /Skate/
1 SEX F
1 BIRT
2 DATE 2 FEB 1911
2 PLAC Toon Town
1 RESI
2 DATE 3 APR 1933
2 PLAC HomesVille

The placing is not fixed (I believe) but needs to be after the highest (or last) line in a group (after the 2 PLAC in the example above).

OK to do on a sample tree of two people but a bit scary on a tree the size you mentioned earlier.

If you can think of a programatic way to do that it would be more correct against the standard but then we are back to the debate on Individuals and Families.

I hope you have enjoyed this thread as much as I have as you can learn a lot (at least I did).

Nigel

PhilW
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by PhilW » Wed Aug 04, 2010 1:58 am

thanks again Nigel you have given me much more to digest so I&#39ll need time to study your replies and I&#39ve still a lot to learn about GEDCOM. Certainly this whole exercise has been very enlightning, not only for GEDCOM but for Apple Scripts and I am now thinking about writing other scripts for other things I do on the computer.

I&#39ll let you know of my progress in due course.
Phil
Sydney, Australia

PhilW
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:19 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by PhilW » Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:59 am

Hi again Nigel

Have decided to convert my family RESI events to familiy EVEN (residence) as putting event information and both man & wife doesn&#39t cover everything as the event notes also mention children who are also resident.

As I indicated I&#39ve made my own version of the REUNION Apple Script that comes with GEDitCOM II. This also modifies the following information in my Reunion produced GEDCOM.

NOTEs - Reunion has MILI, HIST & HEAL notes these now convert to NOTE with a heading added to the note describing it eg MILI = "Military Service" etc.

Family events such as CENS, EMIG and RESI are EVEN with a type of Census, Emmigration, Residence added.

Individual events in Reunion such as _TRANS, _PAR, _PPA,_TODO,_PURC for transportation, pardon, passport application, to do, land purchase convert to EVEN with appropriate TYPE added to describe event.

Sources come across well as I only use 3 fields TITLE, AUTHOR & PUBLISHER NAME. I&#39ve tried using other fields but they either are lost or get lumped into the ifamily source notes field but I like it to be better by placing all my source info into the 3 fields above.

The amended script appears to work well in my Reunion GEDCOM file it makes 5104 changes on first pass. Doing a check in GEDitCOM after this still gives some 20 "errors" which relate to picture size and positions which Reunion GEDCOM includes. Interestingly if I run the script a second time 18 of these are deleted and if I run the script a third time the last 2 disappear. Don&#39t quite understand why the script doesn&#39t pick these up first time, but I&#39ve still a lot to learn.

I&#39m reading up on Scripts and hope to "tidy up" my coding and perhaps add a few more things which I can see should be added although I don&#39t use these things in Reunion.
Phil
Sydney, Australia

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NTJ
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Location: Brussels, Belgium

Post by NTJ » Wed Aug 25, 2010 10:54 am

Phil,

I had flagged a similar problem to Warwick in the "enhancement requests", about linking multiple individuals to one event.

I have hundres of source citations (including emigration events), linking several individuals (and not always from the same family). These transfer well to iFamily but become individual events. Updating them is a pain because I need to update all individual events, defeating the purpose of the joint citation.

I&#39m hoping Warwick will take care of that in the 2010 update edition!

Regards

Nelson

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