Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Using AncestorSync (Pre-Beta Version) - Download from Geni.com to RootsMagic 4 Looks Good

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In the previous post, My First Look at AncestorSync (Pre-Beta Version), I downloaded the AncestorSync program, ran it, and downloaded my Geni.com database into a RootsMagic 4 native file and intro a GEDCOM file. 

In this post, I want to compare the information in my tree on Geni.com and the tree that I opened in RootsMagic 4 using the native RootsMagic 4 file format downloaded through the AncestorSync program. 

I checked the File > Properties of the downloaded RootsMagic 4 file, and saw that it had:


The file downloaded from Geni.com had 1,269 People, 548 Families, 2,662 Events, 774 Places, 0 Sources, etc.  I can't find a way to check what my tree on Geni.com had in terms of People, Families, etc. 

I made screen shots of the trees for all four of my grandparents on Geni.com.  Here is a screen shot of my maternal grandfather's tree on Geni.com:


Here is the corresponding tree on RootsMagic 4:


After looking through both sets of charts, it appears that all of the persons in my tree on Geni.com were downloaded to RootsMagic 4 using the native RootsMagic format in AncestorSync.  That's the good news.

Each person on Geni.com has a Person Profile.  I chose my great-grandfather, Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922).  Here is his profile on Geni.com:


Note that he has a middle name in the screen above.  Clicking on the "Edit Profile" link and the "Relationships" tab reveals that there was a marriage date and place for him with Hattie Louise Hildreth in Geni.com. 

Here is the Person Profile for Frank Seaver in the downloaded RootsMagic 4 file:


There are some differences between the two person profiles:

*  Frank Seaver does not have a middle name in the RootsMagic file
*  A marriage date and place are not included in the Fact list of the RootsMagic file
*   Frank also has an Alternate Name of "Seaver (maiden)" in the RootsMagic file
*  There are three Parent entries for him - "Isaac Seaver and Lucretia Smith," "Isaac Seaver," and "Lucretia Smith" in the RootsMagic file.

Those are all fairly minor problems that will probably be cleaned up in a future release of AncestorSync. 

The GEDCOM upload of a small part of my genealogy database to Geni.com back in 2008 resulted in  Sources being uploaded, and Notes not being uploaded (they were in my database, but I can't find them on Geni.com).  The download from Geni.com to a RootsMagic 4 reveals that there are 0 Sources (a surprise) and no Notes (not a surprise). 

In an ideal world, all of the information in an online family tree (like Geni.com), or in a genealogy program (like RootsMagic 4), would transfer easily to the other tree by AncestorSync.  I hope that it will in the future, and expect that it will.

We'll look at the GEDCOM file transfer from Geni.com to RootsMagic 4 in the next post.

The URL for this post is http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/05/using-ancestorsync-pre-beta-version.html

(c) 2011. Randall J. Seaver. All Rights Reserved. If you are reading this on any other blog, then they have stolen my work. If you wish to re-publish my content, please contact me for permission, which I will usually grant.

2 comments:

Tamura Jones said...

Randy,

Back in 2008, Geni.com did not support sources yet.
Support for sources was added on 2010-04-96.
http://www.geni.com/blog/new-feature-sources/

- Tamura

Tamura Jones said...

That should be 2010-04-06.