* Importing from 'Generations'

Importing from another genealogy program? This is the place to ask. Questions about Exporting should go in the Exporting sub-forum of the General Usage forum.
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dichorionic
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by dichorionic »

Thank you, Mike. The adjusted Post Edit plugin worked a treat!

Here is the header:

0 HEAD
1 SOUR EasyTree
2 VERS V8.0
2 CORP Generations
1 DEST EasyTree
1 DATE 23 APR 2021
1 FILE f:\GENERA~1\PEDIGR~3.UDS
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE_LINKED
1 CHAR IBM WINDOWS
1 SUBM @U1@
0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME Elizabeth /IBBS/
1 SEX F

Here's one INDI record:

0 @I76@ INDI
1 NAME Robert Giles /IBBS/
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE 15 DEC 1827
2 PLAC Kimbolton
2 SOUR @S33@
3 TEXT Kimbolton BTs
2 SOUR @S1323@
1 DEAT
2 DATE 1884
2 SOUR @S152@
3 TEXT age 58
1 OCCU Tutor 1855, Schoolmaster 1871, 1881, MA
2 SOUR @S194@
2 SOUR @S245@
2 SOUR @S1224@
1 ADDR Fetcham in Surrey until 1862-64, then the Mansion, Leatherhead, Surrey. 1881 at 6 Selborne Place, Littlehampton Sussex
2 SOUR @S102@
2 SOUR @S194@
1 NOTE @N64@
1 FAMC @F38@
1 FAMS @F76@
1 CHAN
2 DATE 22 DEC 2016

followed by its Note record:

0 @N64@ NOTE
1 CONC executor to father. 1854 admitted as pensioner to Queens' College, Cambridge University. MA from London University Subscribed to "The Organ, its History and Construction" in 1855 Declared bankrupt 16/11/1880 and annulled 07/01/1881
2 SOUR @S102@
2 SOUR @S246@
2 SOUR @S194@
2 SOUR @S624@
2 SOUR @S1857@

and the first SOUR record:

0 @S102@ SOUR
1 TYPE Will
1 TITL Will Lewis James snr
1 PLAC Kimbolton
1 YEAR 1872
1 EXEC Frances, wife, Robert Giles, son, Lewis Hawkins Adams, son-in-law
1 LOCA Somerset House
1 MEDI photocopy and WPWin file
1 FILE wills
1 TEXT LEWIS JAMES IBBS of Kimbolton, auctioneer, proved 7/12/1872. Left all to his wife Frances. Executors: wife Frances, son Robert Giles of the Mansion,Leatherhead, Surrey, and son-in-law Lewis Hawkins Adams of Holloway, Middlesex and declared
1 TEXT 30/5/1871, witnesses Charles Sprague, surgeon, William Henry Sprague, Medical Assistant
1 TEXT

Is this sufficient?
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tatewise
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

Yes, thank you.
I can see several other issues in those fragments that would benefit from correction by a plugin.
That Generations - Post Edit plugin could probably be enhanced to deal with them.
Most of the tags in the Source record are not standard GEDCOM so will appear as UDF.
Even the valid TEXT tag is misused and should use CONC to concatenate lines rather than repeat the TEXT tag, although FH seems to cope with importing them as one Text From Source field. The only other valid tag is TITL.

Do all Generations Source records use that same set of tags, or does it have templates that allow different tags in different Source records?

With that information, I might find time to create such a plugin...
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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dichorionic
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by dichorionic »

I don't pretend to be fluent in the GEDCOM syntax and had not noticed the anomalies, especially the concatenation.
I feel, though, somewhat gratified that my difficulties on previous attempts were related more to the Generations software than my own incompetence and I'm delighted finally to have sought help. Though I clearly have a few weeks work to do to tidy up this file as a FH project and enter all the data since the Generations file was updated, I feel real progress has been made. Having bought vs 4, 5 and then 6, I'm glad I had not yet bought v7.
Here is a collection of examples of some other types of source records.

0 @S1663@ SOUR
1 TYPE Census
1 TITL Census Bassett
1 PLAC Dulverton
1 DATE 1881
1 MEDI jpg
1 LOCA genealogy/data/census/1881
1 FILE 1881 Bassett family

0 @S1664@ SOUR
1 TYPE GRO Index
1 TITL Marr Reg Francis Bassett
1 YEAR Dec 1852
1 DIST Swaffham
1 VOL 4b 1045

0 @S112@ SOUR
1 TITL Apprenticeship of William Hustwait
1 LOCA Huntingdon CRO (604x84)
1 MEDI WPWin file and photocopy
1 FILE gen-misc
1 TEXT Indenture of apprenticeship of William son of Lewis Hurstwaite to Lewis James IBBS, blacksmith, 19 Jul 1823
1 TEXT

0 @S113@ SOUR
1 TITL Kimbolton Association for Prosecuting Felons
1 LOCA Huntingdon CRO DDX 40/75
1 MEDI Photocopy

0 @S114@ SOUR
1 TITL Bastardy bond
1 LOCA Huntingdon CRO
1 MEDI WPWin file
1 FILE gen-misc
1 TEXT Frances Richards, 1 December 1778 - bastardy bond from John Richards, gentleman, of Brampton

0 @S216@ SOUR
1 TYPE Will
1 TITL Will, Rose Ibbs
1 PLAC Thrapston
1 YEAR 1910
1 LOCA Northampton CRO
1 MEDI WPWin file
1 FILE CRO-Nor
1 TEXT Rose IBBS 1910 Vol 53 P 212 widow, Thrapston
1 TEXT Made 09.11.1909 Proved 27.05.1910
1 TEXT
1 TEXT Bequeaths legacies to Arthur Spearey, gardener of Thrapston £10; Bessie Spearey his wife £50. Property to Charles Frederick William, son, Gerald Honneybun, solicitor, executor
1 TEXT
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by arthurk »

tatewise wrote: 28 Apr 2021 18:57 Do all Generations Source records use that same set of tags, or does it have templates that allow different tags in different Source records?
This reminds me that when I changed from Generations to Legacy many many years ago, I was able to deal with some of the issues by changing Gedcom tags in Generations before exporting the .ged file.

I can't now remember all the details now, but I've a feeling that with user-defined fact types Generations created a tag consisting of the first 4 letters of the name or label. If these happened to be the same as a standard Gedcom tag, the facts were wrongly assigned when the file was imported to Legacy.

With these facts I was able to edit the tag, and if I gave it a completely fictitious one (eg XZXZ), Legacy then asked me what it should do with it, rather than misassigning it.

I can't remember if anything similar could be done with other tags (not user-defined), and I don't even know if it's relevant to what's being discussed here, but I thought I'd mention it in case there are ways of making changes in Generations before creating the .ged file which would make the process easier.
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

Thank you arthurk for that information. It is useful to know how Generations assigns custom fact tags.
It does not appear to be relevant here yet, but who knows?
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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dichorionic
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by dichorionic »

Mike,

I'm delighted to say that, after several previous attempts, I took the plunge, imported a pristine file and, after some global replacements and rather more individual edits, produced a gedcom with no more UDFs. There's more work to do to exploit FH's scope, but thank you so much for your help, especially with the customised plugin.
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

Peter, it would be really useful to know what you edited to get rid of all UDF.

I think there would need to have been a lot of edits to Source records.

How did you discover all the UDF fields?
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by dichorionic »

Hi Mike,

Thanks. I had run your amended Generations Post Edit then ran UDF list and saved that as a text file, then as a spreadsheet. Then did a global conversion of ADDR to RESI with Change Any Fact Tag, checked the result and re-ran UDF list. I repeated the process for MILI to Military Service. After that, it was easier (and more instructive) to go into individual records and change the HEAL, DIV, SEPA and a couple of miscellaneous ones, before deleting the UDF starred bullet. I then re-ran UDF list and got no result.

This morning I had a bit of a flutter after reading your post and checked the sources. At first I couldn't find the Note sources until I realised that I have to open the Note separately. I append screen grabs of one record to show you the result but, at this stage, everything seems to have migrated satisfactorily. I will now spend some weeks in rehab before amending the Occupation and Residence fields into separate items. ;)
Attachments
Eliza Edna FH All.jpg
Eliza Edna FH All.jpg (124.87 KiB) Viewed 4962 times
Eliza Edna FH Note All.jpg
Eliza Edna FH Note All.jpg (56.38 KiB) Viewed 4962 times
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

Judging by your Source record examples posted last Thursday, I would have expected them to have plenty of UDF, but you don't mention them.

Please check the All tab of Source records with Record Id 112, 113, 114, etc.
i.e. In the Records Window, on the Sources tab, open those Source records Property Box and check the All tab.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by dichorionic »

I attach the All screengrab for Sources 112 and 114, though 113 is equally uncluttered by UDFs.
Source 112.jpg
Source 112.jpg (36.48 KiB) Viewed 4947 times
Source 114.jpg
Source 114.jpg (34.86 KiB) Viewed 4947 times
As I mentioned before, the bit of Source gedcom from the 22nd was, inadvertently, taken from a slightly earlier iteration of the file. For yesterday's migration I used a pristine copy of the original, complete Generations gedcom when running the Pre-Load Source Clean and proceeding. I have checked that gedcom file and the excerpt shown last Thursday is identical. I gave you a screengrab of that record yesterday and here is the All tab screengrab for the same source. As you see, there are no UDFs.
Robert Giles New Note.jpg
Robert Giles New Note.jpg (65.03 KiB) Viewed 4947 times
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by dichorionic »

Incidentally, I checked several Exception reports dating back to 2016 and they all produced NOTE.SOUR.SOUR. There were no NOTE.TEXT.SOUR lines at all.
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

I have just double-checked and discovered that the Generations - Post Edit plugin does more than I realised.
As well as fixing the Note record Source Citations it also moves all UDF into labelled local Note text.

So in your Source record screenshots, notice the Note contains Fields MEDI: and LOCA: etc.
Those are the UDF for MEDI, LOCA, etc, shown in your GEDCOM fragments last Thursday.

Thus if you are happy, you are good to go...
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by dichorionic »

Puzzle solved!
Many thanks.
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by Paul Wigan »

I am new to Family Historian and am struggling to successfully import my Gedcom created in Generations.

I have successfully exported my Gedcom using the instructions given in the section "Export your Gedcom File from Generations" at :-

https://fhug.org.uk/kb/kb-article/impor ... historian/

However, on that same page, "Fixing the Source Notes" is not working for me. Step 2 is :-

"Open ƒh with the Family Historian Sample Project and run the plugin selecting the file you exported above".

However, I cannot work out how to select my Gedcom to run the plugin without importing the Gedcom into FH first.

I am probably missing something obvious, but would appreciate some step-by-step instructions please.

I am using Family Historian version 7.0.9. Thanks in anticipation.
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by BillH »

Paul,

Welcome to FH and the FHUG.

The plugin should open a standard Open window where you can browse to the exported GEDCOM file and then click on Open.

Bill
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

Paul,
The Family Historian Sample Project should have been automatically created when you installed FH V7.
It is that Project you open in FH and use the Tools > Plugins... command to select and Run the Generations Pre-Load Source Clean Plugin.
The Plugin then lets you choose the GEDCOM file you exported from Generations.
The Plugin creates an edited version of the GEDCOM file.
It is that edited GEDCOM file that you import into FH using File > Project Window > New Project...
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by Paul Wigan »

Thanks Bill & Mike, but I am still struggling with this. Maybe I am missing something obvious ?

Taking Mike's post, I am fine with steps 1 and 2. However, at step 3 "...The Plugin then lets you choose the GEDCOM file you exported from Generations", how do I make that choice please ?

FH has got the Sample Project open. My Gedcom exported from Generations is in its own folder. But how do I point the Plugin to the Gedcom file that I want cleaning up ?

Once I have created the edited Gedcom file, I think that I will be fine importing it into FH.

Any help gratefully received !
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by BillH »

First go to Tools > Plugins. Select the Generations Pre-Load Source Clean plugin. Click on the Run button to run the plugin. You should get a window that looks like this:

image1.jpg
image1.jpg (42.16 KiB) Viewed 3251 times
Do you get a window like this when you run the plugin?

If you do, then in the left hand pane, navigate to the folder that contains the GEDCOM file.

Then in the right hand pane, select the GEDCOM file by clicking on it and then click on the Open button in the lower right hand corner.

Bill
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by Paul Wigan »

Hi Bill and thanks for the reply. I do not get that Window when I run the Plugin.

When I click on Tools/Plugins, I get the Plugins dialogue box thus :-
Capture1.JPG
Capture1.JPG (60.17 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
I assume that "Clean Up Notes" is the pre-import Plugin that I want, as its version number and date last updated agree with the download for that Plugin. However, when I click on Run, I do not get the dialogue box that you have referred to. Instead, I get :-
Capture2.JPG
Capture2.JPG (63.88 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
If I click on OK, I then get :-
Capture3.JPG
Capture3.JPG (60.44 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
Hence, the Plugin has presumably run on the FH Sample Project and not on my data, as I haven't been able to point it towards my Gedcom exported from Generations.

Any more thoughts please ?
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BillH
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by BillH »

That is not the right plugin. It is actually called Generations Pre-Load Source Clean.

There is a link to it in the KB at Importing to Family Historian. Go to the bottom and click on Import from Generations Family Tree. The link is about 1/2 way down the page.

Clicking on the link for the plugin doesn't work for me, so I right clicked on the text and used Save Link As to actually download the plugin.

Bill
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

OR use the Plugin Store... button in the Tools > Plugins window and download Generations Pre-Load Source Clean from there.

If unclear about installing and running Plugins see FHUG Knowledge Base Family Historian Plugins.

As I am sure you must know, computers are very fussy about getting the details exactly correct.
Several times the Generations Pre-Load Source Clean plugin has been mentioned and that is the one to run.
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BillH
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by BillH »

Mike,

I tried using the plugin store via the Tools menu. I searched for Generations and it didn't find anything. I then searched for Pre-Load and that didn't find anything. Same for Generations Pre-Load Source Clean. So... I assumed it isn't in the store.

So I found the link in the KB and tried that, but the link didn't work either (or at least clicking on the link didn't seem to do anything useful). So I right clicked the link and saved the plugin that way.

Any ideas as to why the link didn't do anything useful but Save Link As worked?

Thanks,
Bill
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

Ah! :roll:
That particular plugin is not in the Plugin Store (presumably as it is very particular to importing Generations).
It is saved in the FHUG Knowledge Base as a download file.

The same is the case for the later Install Generations Post Edit plugin.

Sorry to have misled everyone :oops:

The way the FHUG Knowledge Base download links work seems to depend on which browser you are using.
Firefox is OK but maybe Chrome is different.
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BillH
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by BillH »

OK... yes it does work in Firefox. I am using Chrome.

What is odd is that everything else I try to download from the KB works fine... queries, AS templates, etc. Only these links from KB articles seem to fail. These links must be set up differently.

Bill
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Re: Importing from 'Generations'

Post by tatewise »

Yes, the Download links use a very different mechanism.
Perhaps post in the 'Maintaining the KnowledgeBase' forum regarding that download problem for those plugins and it should eventually get fixed.
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