Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 8: Receiving and Installing a GEDCOM File

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In Comments on my post, Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 7: More GEDCOM Trials, Russ Worthington (of the Family Tree Maker User blog) tried to understand what I was doing and how I was doing it.  He then tried to duplicate my actions with one of his own trees, and created a GEDCOM file from an FTM 2012 file synced with one of his Ancestry Member Trees and sent it to me.

Russ's process in creating the GEDCOM file was demonstrated in his post, Genea-Musing Blog for FTM2012.  The GEDCOM file had one person, 6 Media items and 16 sources.  He created a Zip file for the 6 Media items linked in the GEDCOM file.  Then he emailed me the GEDCOM file and the zipped Media .file.

1)  When I received the email, I saved the attachments to my Family Tree Maker file folder, and then unzipped the zipped Media folder.  Then I opened Family Tree Maker 2012, and in the Plan Workspace, I chose the "New Tree" tab and checked the "Import an existing tree."  I then browsed my file folders and selected the GEDCOM file that Russ sent to me via email:


2)  After clicking on the yellow "Continue" button in the screen above, the GEDCOM file loaded quickly and the "Import Complete" window is shown below:


The screen above showed that the GEDCOM file contained one person, 6 Media items and 16 sources.

3)  I clicked on the "Person" tab in the People workspace, highlighted the name of Hiram Edmund Deats, and saw:


In the screen above, you can see that there are five sources for Hiram's name.  The Notes for Hiram are shown in the bottom frame (and I note that those Notes, apparently created in the Ancestry Member Tree, has no paragraph breaks). 

4)  I clicked on the Media workspace button and saw that the actual images were not there.  I clicked on the "Media" menu and chose the "Find Missing Media" item:



In the screen above, you can see one media item is highlighted, and the link in the lower right-hand corner is to a file folder on Russ's computer, not on my computer.  We have to get the links in my FTM 2012 file connected to the Media items in the Media folder on my computer system.

5)  I clicked on the "Find Missing Media" item and saw the list of items with links in the GEDCOM file:


6)  I chose the  "Select All" button in the screen above and then clicked on the "Search" button and saw:


The six Media items on the list above were found in my computer files (only because I extracted them before I loaded the GEDCOM file).

7) I clicked on the "OK" button on the screen above, and saw in the Media workspace:


The six Media items are now included in the Media workspace. 

8)  I clicked on the People workspace, the "Media" tab for the lower frame, and then on the Burial fact, and saw:


In the screen above, the two pictures attached to the Person are shown in the "Media" tab area on the bottom frame.  The "Media" tab in the right-hand panel shows the two Media items associated with the Burial Fact. 

The demonstration above, using a GEDCOM file for selected person(s), shows that the Media items are included when a GEDCOM file is created from a FTM 2012 file synced with an Ancestry Member Tree.

That is not my earlier experience, as demonstrated in my post, Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 7: More GEDCOM Trials.  I don't have an explanation for the different results.  Russ used a synced FTM 2012 file, then exported "Selected Individuals" using "GEDCOM 5.5," selecting "Other" and "ANSI," for his GEDCOM file creation. 

I have done exactly the same type of GEDCOM file creation operation four times now (I know, stupidity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result!) - and do not get any Multimedia items when I import the created GEDCOM file into FTM 2012.  No Media file folder is created when the GEDCOM file is created, even though there are Media items attached to the selected Persons and Sources in the synced FTM 2012 file.  

It appears that my FTM 2012 does not work the same way that Russ's FTM 2012 works insofar as creating GEDCOM files.  That makes no sense to me.  I don't see anything in the File or Tools menu lists and items to change settings. 

I think that my next step is to create a GEDCOM file, with Media items, and send it to Russ to see if his system performs exactly like mine does. 

3 comments:

Kathleen Moore said...

Okay, I think I figured it out.... I did say I think.

If you uncheck the box "Only include items of the selected individuals". Then your media links turn up.

I just tried it and I had 11 errors and all 11 media links.

Kathleen

Kathleen Moore said...

The only problem with that solution is it does put all media links through including ones you won't want, but at least there are some and that's a step closer to finding the answer.

Cousin Russ said...

Kathleen,

I don't think that is the issue. But still have no clue as to what the issue is.

Randy - I received your FTM file and images. They opened and I found the images OK, as you observed.

However, I WAS able to duplicate what you saw with your file. I can NOT with my files. Too Weird.

I also saw an issue at the top of the GEDCOM file, created by your file, but again, can't duplicate with mine.

It will be interesting to see what Kathleen sees, as I sent her the GEDCOM and Zipped file I sent to you.

Russ