Thursday, September 6, 2012

Task 2b - Sync Family Tree Maker 2012 File to Ancestry Member Tree


In Problems in RM5, LFT7.5, FTM2012 and Ancestry Member Trees  (3 September 2012), I noted two problems when I went from my RootsMagic 5 file to a GEDCOM file to a Legacy Family Tree 7.5 file to a second GEDCOM file to a Family Tree Maker 2012 file to as new Ancestry Member Tree.  The two problems with the resulting tree were that:

*  Some of the "double dates" were wrong (one said "0001-20 March 1630" when it should have said "20 March 1630/1")

*  Some long Source Citation details (more than 255 characters) were truncated.

I showed in the previous post that the GEDCOM created by RootsMagic 5 had correct double dates for Sarah Pray and a complete source citation detail for the 1920 U.S. census for Frank Walton Seaver.  


In the previous post, I set out three tasks to investigate where these problems occurred.  The first task was to create a GEDCOM file from my RootsMagic 5 database and upload it to a new Ancestry Member Tree, which I did in Task 1 - Upload RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file to Ancestry Member Tree.


The second task is to upload the same GEDCOM file to Family Tree Maker 2012, review the issues, and then upload the FTM2012 tree to a new Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature.  I'm going to split this effort into two posts - first the upload to FTM 2012, then the TreeSync to a new Ancestry Member Tree.  I discussed the first half in 
Task 2a - Upload GEDCOM File to Family Tree Maker 2012.

Part 2 of this second task is to upload the Family Tree Maker 2012 file created from the GEDCOM file (created by RootsMagic 5) into a new Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature.

I took screen captures throughout this process in order to identify the elapsed time.  Here are the times noted:

*  31 August, 9:15 PM - TreeSync started 
*  31 August, 10:23 PM - TreeSync of the data file complete (Media in the process of being uploaded).
*  1 September, 2:15 PM - The Media upload is still progressing.  I cancelled it finally.

I took this screen shot today, showing the statistics for the FTM 2012 file:



There are only 509 Media items listed, and I had 515 Media item links in the GEDCOM file. Does anything in the Media Workspace help me here?  There is a "Find Missing Media" link in the "Media" menu in the "Media" Workspace.  I clicked on that and saw:



There are five Media items listed with the Media caption, Path, Status and Attach columns.  The Path column said "Unknown (click to search manually)."  I checked the caption, clicked on the "Unknown..." link for each item, found the Media item in my computer files, and added it to the list.  After all five of the Missing Media, I saw:


Now I don't know exactly how to proceed here - do I click on the "Copy" button in the "Attach" column?  I didn't do that, and still have 509 Media items.  I don't see any Missing Media items when I scroll through the thumbnail images, however.

I know I got off track with the above, but it's a potential issue for people using TreeSync and who end up with Missing Media.  

After the TreeSync was successfully completed, I checked the "Tree Overview" of the Ancestry Member Tree created:



All of the Persons were uploaded and synced, but only 504 Media items were synced.  My guess is that the 5 found in "Missing Media" were not uploaded.  However, my FTM 2012 Plan Workspace says it is In Sync.  

To the problems noted in the first post:

1)  The Double Date" issue:  The Person Page "Overview" for Sarah Pray is:



The Double Date information is not reflected on that page.  However, the "Facts and Sources" tab looks like:



On this "Facts and Sources" tab, the Double Dates are accurately and completely reflected.

2)  The Source Citation Truncation issue:  Here is the list of source Citations and Details for Frank Walton Seaver:



As you can see, the Detail is truncated when it is longer than 255 characters.

3)  The Notes issue:  The Notes window for Frank Walton Seaver looksl ike this:



As you can see, there are extra blank characters  in the text.  However, they are not in the Source or Source Citation Details fields.  All of this is consistent with what was in the FTM 2012 file before the TreeSync.

So what I learned in this experiment was that starting with a Family Tree Maker 2012 file (created by importing a GEDCOM file created by RootsMagic 5) to an Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature resulted in:

*  The GEDCOM file upload for my 41,261 person tree with 30,000 source citations took only 68 minutes to upload to an Ancestry Member Tree.  However, the Media upload too much longer.


*  504 Media items of the 515 links to Media items in my computer files (that I had attached to my RootsMagic 5 tree, and which had links to the images in the GEDCOM file to FTM 2012), uploaded to the Ancestry Member Tree.  


*  The Ancestry Member Tree uploaded the "Double Dates" correctly, but did not display them correctly in the "Overview" page of the "Timeline" field on the Person Page.  However, they did display correctly on the "Facts and sources" page of the "Timeline" field. 


*  The Ancestry Member Tree truncates long Source Citation Detail text to 255 characters. 


*  The Ancestry Member Tree reads and displays the Person Notes data as shown in FTM 2012 (however, since FTM 2012 added extra blank characters after the GEDCOM upload, the AMT does also).  Note that only the tree Owner and persons designated as Editors can see these Notes.


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/task-2b-sync-family-tree-maker-2012.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

3 comments:

Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

Our findings of FTM2012 to an AMT are consistent.

Our previous sharing of GEDCOM files RE: the extra space is the same. I think that this is a GEDCOM issue and the how the CONT tag has been implemented. It is not clear to me as to which program is at fault, but it IS a GEDCOM issue.

I have posted a blog post on your Missing Media issue.

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/search/label/2012MediaMissingMedia

My question to you would be, are those "missing" images missing in Roots Magic 5? are the on your hard drive? and can FTM2012 Find Them.

I hope my Blog post helps you with this issue.

Russ

Anonymous said...

I hope the developers are reading your posts because it should not be this difficult. I use RM 5 and base on this no way would I even attempt to load my files on to Ancestry.

Cousin Russ said...

Anonymous,

These blogs are not monitored by any developer. They may look at them, and from earlier posts by Randy, The Roots Magician has posted replies.

But, from Randy's posts, Roots Magic to an Ancestry Member Tree is not that difficult. Also, Dear MYRTLE has also posted about Roots Magic to Ancestry.com.

Thus far, in this thread of posts by Randy, his experience is the same as mine, and I use Family Tree Maker 2012. The only issue Randy has brought up, that is in the Gray area, is the Extra Space in a Person Notes. THAT is a GEDCOM issue, not specifically a Roots Magic, nor an Ancestry.com issue.

I do not think that you will have any issue with Roots Magic 5 to an Ancestry.com issue. What you have seen here, in my opinion, is very minor, to having the ability to share your research with others.


Russ