* Generations 4.5 to FH6 Queries

[Stephen883]

With my files on Generations instead of entering data in their provided sections I put everything into Misc Notes and add a Freeform Source code as I like to see everything together. Am I right in thinking FH6 will not import it all as I have it? Next I have a one-name study file where I have many many orphans or orphan branches, will FH6 accept this data? I have been with Generations since I started but one of my files keeps corrupting by selecting random people and swapping them or linking to a totally unconnected family. I tried exporting to Gedcom and back to a new Generations uds file but the bug came with it, I just hope it doesn't travel into FH6 when I import. My Generations is on a laptop with XP but FH6 will go on my desktop with Win 7. Any answers or advice gratefully received.

[Valkrider]

I will answer your second question, I use Family Historian for my Surname Study and it has many individual unlinked individuals and families without any issues. I find it ideal for my study particularly with the Find Duplicates plugin which helps when I add new individuals.

As to your first question I suspect that @Mike Tate will chime in with a fuller reply on that but basically it depends on which gedcom tag that these notes use. If it is the normal Note tag then they should import fine .

[Stephen883]

Thank you for your advice it is appreciated, the one-name file is a mess but I like a database with everyone on it so family history software works better than Access.

[tatewise]

Did you see how_to:import_generations|> Import from Generations (How To)?

It is difficult to answer your first question without knowing how Generations represents your data in GEDCOM. So I suggest you import to FH and see what happens. It rarely discards data but may use UDF.

[Stephen883]

I've imported one of my gedcoms of my wife's family. I could only choose Ancestral, Gedcom 4.0 or 5.5 so chose the latter. I put the line length to 255 and under optional fields made sure every box was ticked. FH6 refused to load the Gedcom on my XP laptop onto my Win 7 PC, so copied the file over and then it loaded. It said there were errors with hyphenated text though I do not have have any that I know so ticked don't know and continued. The file appears to have exported all the text from the Misc notes, occupations and age dates in the memo's, but the sources were all lost. Under the sources tab on a record the number appears as they did on Generations but all show as Untitled. On this file alone that would mean 135 separate sources covering 1925 people on which I would have to enter each one individually. Then I have thousands of other people in paternal, maternal & one-name study files - ouch. An optional field I added in Generations to cover addresses didn't appear, but they are covered in Misc notes. The Misc notes have all appeared in Notes under the first entry which was birth certificate entry though it includes the GRO birth reference details and three censuses. To conclude as each person would require major editing it would probably be easier to wipe the record and enter manually. Generations can produce a Word doc family history report with all data on so it would be easy to copy & paste.

[tatewise]

Don't give up too soon.
Did you check for UDF?
Post some snippets of GEDCOM where data seems to have been omitted.
BTW: Did you follow all the advice in the Import from Generations page?

[Stephen883]

Appreciate your help and advice. Sorry what is a UDF? If it is database speak then I'll be totally lost, sorry. I followed the export steps. The bit about fixing the source notes I ran but didn't save just assumed it was installed. On checking I realise that I do not have a new file with the prefix updated. I went back to fixing file and saved it on the hard drive. From the sample project I went to import and plug in, selected the file and ran it, and it told me it was already there but would overwrite. Still no updated prefix file found for the imported gedcom. I opened it and did the same import with the same answers, and nothing on the file has changed so I must be doing something wrong. Later today I'll delete everything including FH and start again.

[Jane]

No need to uninstall anything.

You have installed the plugin rather than run it, to run a plug in you have installed go to Tools>Plugins and double click the plugin from the list. See this video: plugins:about#downloading_and_using_plugins|> Downloading and Using Plugins

The knowledge base explains what a UDF is here: glossary:udf|> Uncategorised Data Fields

[johnmorrisoniom]

Don't panic, I moved from Generations to FH3 many years ago, and thought that I had lost a lot of my data, but it was just in hard to find places (UDF).

With FH6 and plugins, the move will be much easier, but you will need to get your head around what will seem to be strange terminology.

You may still need to manually adjust some things, but there are plugins to do most of the changes needed.
Generations used in-line sources (Much like wikipedia), which FH does not support.

I am certain Mike Tate will be able to guide you through the necessary steps to update your FH file correctly, but be sure to do the steps he gives in the correct order.

[Stephen883]

Thanks Mike & Jane for your assistance. I originally emailed FH Support about compatibility of my Generations files and they said "We recommend you download our free 30 day trial to see if Family Historian suits your requirements". Following Mike's instructions I went to Tools-Plugins, tried to run it to be told that trial versions cannot run plugins. This rather defeats the object if I cannot see how my data will end up properly after import though as others have made the journey there is hope for me. My birthday is not for a few weeks and my daughter is buying me the boxed software as a gift so I'll close up on everything until then, thank you all for your help again.

[arthurk]

Many many years ago I switched from Generations to Legacy (and then from that to RootsMagic, and now FH). Like you I was having problems with data attached to the wrong people etc, and news of its imminent demise made me decide to make the move.

One thing I can remember about making the move is a trick I devised for situations where the new program seemed to put data in the wrong place. Generations allows you (or at least allowed you then) to edit the GEDCOM tag of any fact, and I found that by changing it to something totally made up and non-standard I could force the receiving program to ask me what to do with it, rather than automatically do what it thought was right. (Obviously, this needs to be done on a copy of your file, in case something goes wrong.)

I suspect that importing such an item into FH would create a UDF, though I can't now test that. At the time, though, it did give me that bit more control over the process and reduce the amount of tidying up needed afterwards, so based on what you've said so far, it might be something for you to keep up your sleeve.

I think most of us will have had to experiment several times with different settings before finding the best way of getting our data from one program to another, so I'm sure you'll make it in the end.

[Stephen883]

Appreciate your support, I'm not very good at playing with programs but so long as my original data is intact UI can mess around. So far it appears the data went where it should have but lost all the sources, well failed to allocate them and put the data in separate fields is a better description. The plugin may well help but nothing I can do to experiment until my birthday. Had it not been for the support from the previous Generation users on this forum who have been successful I would have abandoned FH and just plodded along with Generations and my old laptop for a few more years.

[E Wilcock]

This may not be of any help but I first bought and imported trees to fh (the second issue I think) a long time ago at a time when I was using Generations. I bought fh as a present for a grand daughter and put only simplified data into the tree I gave her. But I remember no problem on import.
I no longer own a copy of Generations and think I threw away the disc.
However, I still have GEDCOMS on my backup which were generated in Generations.
Looking at the Generations GEDCOM text in Notepad, the sources seem to be normal except for many breaks in the long text fields, marked CONT.

This is the first chunk of the Generations Gedcom as opened in Notepad.(I have altered names and dates as it is someone else's tree, I was researching.)
0 HEAD
1 SOUR EasyTree
2 VERS V8.0
2 CORP Sierra On-Line
1 DEST EasyTree
1 DATE 26 FEB 2003
1 FILE c:\My Documents\Generations Data\Johnson.uds
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE_LINKED
1 CHAR IBM WINDOWS
0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME Anna/Smith/
1 SEX F
1 BIRT
2 DATE 1854
2 PLAC India poss Bombay. Hydrabad
2 SOUR @S2@
2 SOUR @S5@
2 SOUR @S18@
1 BAPM
2 DATE 10 APR 1854
2 PLAC Hydrabad , Sind.
2 SOUR @S18@
1 FAMC @F4@
1 FAMS @F1@
1 CHAN
2 DATE 16 FEB 2003

I created a New file in fh and began it by browsing for and opening a Generations GEDCOM file. I chose my mother in law's family as I am familiar with the data. I used no plug in. Just the fh program.

I was asked during the import to identify the type of breaks in the text and the first option was the correct one - two words in each line separated by a -. After import the long text passages wrapped fine.

I looked at the sources, I have 113 sources, 11 of which have come in untitled. Though the rest of the data is there, a quick check suggests they had no title given to them in Generations and thus had none in the Gedcom. Here is an example

0 @S45@ SOUR
1 TYPE Web Site
1 AUTH List of Plymouth War Dead
1 URL http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... ulhale.jpg
1 DATE Nov 2000

The opening of the Generations GEDCOM produced a long exception report which I dont understand but I could email it to one of the FH experts, if that might throw light on any problems. The items are INFO ONLY i.e. data has not been discarded, and I believe they say what has been done with uncategorised data. One example is the field Nickname. There are a great many of these problems with non standard Data, in a file of only 322 people.

There is also a validation report of a single case where there is an error in the GEDCOM family relationship.

I hope this may be of help both to anyone arriving from Generations and to Mike in trying to help.

[Stephen883]

Thanks for that advice I'll open up the Gedcom and see how it looks. The plugin for FH was made for us Generations dinosaurs so I want to wait until I get the licence to then try it. As so many have been successful I have great hope. I will miss the easy view that Generations gave and the simplicity of its Find Anything where you could put in many fields. Like anything new things take a while to get used to.

[E Wilcock]

You can find anything in fh too. By clicking on the binoculars icon in the task bar.

[Stephen883]

In Generations you can put a surname, or first name, then born after, died before etc. The query box has Is; Is not; Before; After; Contains; Doesn't contain; Starts with; You can use up to four at a time.

[BillH]

While not quite as powerful, you can do some of this on the records window on the Individuals tab if you are looking for a person. The filtering on the top has last name, first name, from year, and to year. This can narrow things down a bit. You could also use a query to specify all of the criteria you mention.

[Jane]

In Generations you can put a surname, or first name, then born after, died before etc. The query box has Is; Is not; Before; After; Contains; Doesn't contain; Starts with; You can use up to four at a time.

In FH you can have infinite filters in Queries you just need to build a custom one to suit your requirements. There is a video in showing how to build a basic query in how_to:creating_a_query:married_women|> Creating a Married Women Query

[Stephen883]

Thanks for the advice, I mainly use queries in my maternal & paternal files to see who I still need to find events for, but on my one-name study with just over 5,800 people with many individuals and families being orphan queries are a necessity. If I get stuck I'll see what the market price is to write a few as I'm not very good at that sort of thing.

[Valkrider]

There are some plugins that help with finding missing records.

Lookup Missing BMD records is one and Lookup Missing Census is another

[Jane]

There are lots of ready written queries in the Knowledge base, so you can always download a few of them.

[Stephen883]

Many thanks, lots to do soon.