Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Transferring Media Files Between Software Programs - Post 2: RootsMagic GEDCOM Imported to Family Tree Maker 2014

I am posting a series on Transferring Media Files between genealogy software programs and an Ancestry Member Tree using a GEDCOM export.  Here are the posts to date:

Transferring Media Files Between Software Programs - Post 1: Project Defined and RootsMagic GEDCOM Created

In this post, I'm going to import the GEDCOM file created using RootsMagic 6 into Family Tree Maker 2014 and see if all of the Media Files transfer during this process.

1)  The GEDCOM import into Family Tree Maker 2014 was done in the Plan Workspace, on the "New Tree" tab, and selecting the "Import an Existing Tree" in the "Getting Stated" list.  I then browsed my file and selected the Test 1 GEDCOM File that I created with RootsMagic.  When the import finished, I clicked on the "More" button to see the "File Statistics:"



The statistics for the FTM 2014 file were:

*  Individuals:  50
*  Families: 27
*  Sources: 68
*  Citations: 195
*  Places:  63
*  Media: 304
*  Records:  681

The RootsMagic file had:   50 people, 27 Families, 370 Events, 63 Places, 68 Sources, 327 Citations, 100 Multimedia Items and 320 Multimedia links in the file.  

There is a difference in the number of citations, and the number of media items (or links?) for some reason.  

2)  Let's see how many media items that my three selected persons have.  In the "People Workspace," here is the "Tree" view for my father, Frederick Walton Seaver, Jr. (1911-1983):


With my father highlighted, I clicked on the "Person" tab, and selected the "Media" tab below the Fact list.  I also selected his Preferred Name on the Fact list, and the "Media" tab in the right-hand panel to show the 7 media items for the selected Fact:


The "Media" tab below the Fact list shows only 9 media items, including two items for a thumbnail photograph.  The "Media" tab for the selected Fact showed 7 media items for the preferred name.  However, 4 are of the same image, and 3 are of a second image.  Both of the images on the Fact Media list are in the "Media" list on the area below the Fact list.

For comparison purposes, the RootsMagic file had 17 media items attached to this person.  Some Media items were also tagged to Facts.

I compared the Media items found by clicking on each of the Facts on the list above, and found 16. The 9 shown on the "Media" tab below the Facts above are all "Linked via person."  When I click on each Fact item on the list and look at the Media items shown in the right-hand panel, there are Media that are "Linked by source citation," "Linked by person individual fact" and "Linked by shared fact."

There were 16 different media items attached to either the person, the source or the fact in Family Tree Maker 2014.  Family Tree Maker did not "Link via person" 9 of the media items that were attached to the person in RootsMagic (but one item was for his parents, not for the person).

3)  My second selected person was my grandfather, Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942).  Here is his "Person" view with a Fact selected and the "Media" tabs selected:


Their were 16 Media items attached to the person, but two were duplicates.  In all, there were 18 different media items attached to either the person or to a source or a fact.  In the RootsMagic file, there were 18 media items attached to the person.  As before, the thumbprint photo was not attached to the Profile picture at the top right of the screen.

4)  My third selected person is my great-grandmother, Julia (White) Richmond (1848-1913), with the "Media" tabs selected:



There were 10 Media items attached to the person in FTM, and none were duplicates.  In all, there were 10 different media items attached to either the person, a source or a fact.  In the RootsMagic file, there were 10 media items attached to the person.  As before, the thumbprint photo was not attached to the Profile picture at the top right of the screen.

5)  It is apparent that the Thumbnail photograph was transferred by the GEDCOM file and attached to the person, but was not made the Profile picture in Family Tree Maker 2014.

Here is the process to add the Profile photo to the top right-hand panel of the "Person" view.  If you click inside the profile photo at the top right of the screen, a dropdown box lets you choose between "Add New Picture" and "Link to existing picture."  I chose the latter:


Clicking on "Link to Existing Picture" opens the list of ALL media items and I scrolled down to select the right one:


I clicked "OK" and the selected photograph appeared in the Profile photo area below the person's name at the top right of the screen:


A user can see where each media item has been used.  I clicked on Julia's picture and the "Media Detail" window opened, and I could edit or add a caption, a date, categories, description, etc.  I could make the media item private.  On the lower right-hand area, the file name and the file folder location of the media item is listed:


A click on the "Usage" button (lower left-hand corner) opens a window that shows the person link and fact that it is used.  I can also "Print" the media item.  There is a "Help" button on the bottom right of the window above.

6)  Because I imported the GEDCOM file that had media item links provided, the media items were not put in a separate file folder on my computer.  When Family Tree Maker 2014 created this database from the GEDCOM file, it put the database file in the Family Tree Maker file folder.  It also created a file folder with the database file name and the word "Media" at the end in the Family Tree Maker file folder.

7)  I don't know what to make of the differences that I found above.  There are three possible (and perhaps more) reasons:

*  The database creator (that would be the user, me) may have messed up the tagging of the Facts and/or Sources in RootsMagic 6.  I've done this task over the span of about five years and don't recall everything that I did.

*  RootsMagic 6 may have added media items to the GEDCOM file for each Person, Fact and Source with a media item, creating duplicates.

*  Family Tree Maker 2014 may have created additional media items for multiple use of media items when it imported the GEDCOM file.

I think that the 304 "Media" items in the FTM 2014 statistics reflect 304 different Media items, and not 304 multimedia links.  Here is the "Media Workspace" view which clearly shows multiple copies of many images (probably because multiple facts or sources were attached to an image).


In my opinion, Family Tree Maker is doing what it has to do when it adds a separate media item for each link transmitted in the GEDCOM file.  My guess is that the other programs will do the same thing.

*  I don't know why all of the media attached to a person in RootsMagic are not attached to the person in Family Tree Maker 2014.  It may be how the user (me) tagged the media in RootsMagic.
*  The person Profile picture transferred via GEDCOM must be attached manually to the person Profile in in Family Tree Maker 2014.

*  For the three persons I checked carefully, all of the media items for a person in RootsMagic were included in the Family Tree Maker database, but not all of the media items were in the Person "Media" tab.  It didn't lose them or not find them, it put them in different places.

In the next post, I will do essentially the same task by importing the same GEDCOM into Legacy Family Tree 7.5 (unless LFT Version 8.0 is released in the next 24 hours).

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/11/transferring-media-files-between_19.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver



2 comments:

Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

I'll post a FTM2014 view of what you experienced.

First: in FTM2014 the number of Media files and the number of citations have no relationship with each other. A Media file can be linked to a PERSON or a CITATION, and in some cases both. I'll give an example. But those two numbers aren't important, for this test. (at least I think so)

Second: I think I mentioned in your earlier most aht "* The person Profile picture transferred via GEDCOM must be attached manually to the person Profile in in Family Tree Maker 2014.
" would happen. The "profile" image in the People Workspace, Person View has to be manually done, as you experienced. How Roots Magic 6 and FTM2014 (and FTM2012) use that image are unique to the two programs. It wasn't too long ago that we couldn't even get the images across (pre-FTM2012).

It would be interesting to know what you see in the Media Workspace for that ICON / thumbnail shows. Look at the Lower Right corner and see if the filename is red, meaning not found.

Russ

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