Readers who have been following this series will know that I believe genealogy apps should support GEDCOM 5.5.1. There are two versions of GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data Communication) reported in GEDCOM files by most genealogy software today: versions 5.5 and 5.5.1. The last “official” version dated 1996 from the Family History Department (today known as FamilySearch) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was [Read more…] about Why All Genealogy Apps Should Support GEDCOM 5.5.1 (Updated 12 Dec 2021)
Other Topics
Family Historian Adds Automatic Record Matching and ‘Hints’ for Findmypast Databases
Tree hints, made famous by the shaky leaves at Ancestry.com, are a feature of genealogy websites and databases that is growing in popularity. In addition to Ancestry, Family Tree Maker has them, as do FamilySearch, RootsMagic, MyHeritage, Geni, and several others. The Family Historian 6 app was previously able to automatically match to records at MyHeritage; now it can do the same with Findmypast. The following is a news release from Calico Pie about this new capability. Also, don’t forget to check out my review of Family Historian 6, if you haven’t already. [Read more…] about Family Historian Adds Automatic Record Matching and ‘Hints’ for Findmypast Databases
MacKiev Publishes a Family Tree Maker FAQ
Software MacKiev has recently published a FAQ for Family Tree Maker (FTM) that has some interesting information. Here are the main points as I see them: [Read more…] about MacKiev Publishes a Family Tree Maker FAQ
Ancestry.com Backtracks on Family Tree Maker and Partners with RootsMagic
I just received this announcement from Ancestry.com, and it’s posted on their blog (just in time for RootsTech): “New Family Tree Maker Options.”
These are the two new options Ancestry is offering: [Read more…] about Ancestry.com Backtracks on Family Tree Maker and Partners with RootsMagic
How Well Does Ancestry.com Handle GEDCOM? (Updated 30 Apr 2016)
A few of our readers have asked what problems Ancestry.com has with GEDCOM files. One reader reported, “If you mainly work on your tree online in Ancestry.com and rely on TreeSync to move the data to FTM [Family Tree Maker], a lot of the source and citation descriptions get truncated during the download due to their length. So unless you check every source and citation after running TreeSync, you’ll end up with a lot of incomplete source and citation descriptions.” My personal workflow is the opposite of this, so I haven’t had problems with sources or citations getting truncated. I mainly work in FTM and then sync my tree with Ancestry.com. [Read more…] about How Well Does Ancestry.com Handle GEDCOM? (Updated 30 Apr 2016)