The table below maps most of the fields in Family Tree Maker to their GEDCOM 5.5.1 tag (at least how FTM exports them). As I complete my testing of each app, I’ll update the table. You can use it as a quick reference and as a checklist of fields that might require corrective action before or after you export your family tree to a GEDCOM. If you click the image below, it will open in Dropbox, where you can download it to your device. Items highlighted in red are missing or handled incorrectly; if the field name is highlighted, then it’s imported incorrectly into the app, while if the GEDCOM tag is highlighted, then it’s exported incorrectly to GEDCOM. Items in yellow are custom fields, which may be problematic for some applications. Please let us know in the Comments if you find any errors.
A note on the term “crosswalk:” no, I’m not referring to a North American or Australian pedestrian crossing. I learned the term when I was a NATO personnel officer. Every few years it seemed like we had to rejigger the manpower documents. We called the document that mapped the old manpower posts to the new ones a “crosswalk.” Now I see that its full name is a “schema crosswalk.”
Updates
30 Dec 2015: Added Reunion 11 fields and GEDCOM tags
31 Dec 2015: Added RootsMagic 7.0.10 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
6 Jan 2016: Added Legacy Family Tree 8 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
10 Jan 2016: Added Ancestral Quest 14 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
16 Jan 2016: Updated Reunion 11 fields and GEDCOM tags.
21 Jan 2016: Added Family Historian 6 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
23 Jan 2016: Added Ancestry.com fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
20 Feb 2016: Added information about a FTM 2014 GEDCOM tag (not shown in the image above).
3 Mar 2016: Added a column for “Generic Field Name.”
5 Mar 2016: Updated all apps. Added borders between apps for readability.
8 Mar 2016: Added MacFamilyTree 7 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
17 Mar 2016: Added Family Tree Builder 7 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
30 Mar 2016: Added Heredis 2015 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
9 Apr 2016: Added iFamily for Mac fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above). Also added fields for Association, Event, and Fax Number for all apps.
14 Apr 2016: Added GEDitCOM II fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
19 Apr 2016: Added Brother’s Keeper 7 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
6 Jan 2017: Updated the Also Known As and Submitter fields for Family Tree Maker based on versions 2014.1 and 3.1.
8 Aug 2018: Updated the fields for Gramps 5.
18 Oct 2019: Updated the fields for Family Tree Maker 2019 and MacFamilyTree 8. Updated version numbers of apps I have rechecked.
26 Oct 2019: Updated the web address in source citation from NOTE to _LINK for Family Tree Maker and updated source fields for RootsMagic.
20 Nov 2021: Added RootsMagic 8 fields and GEDCOM tags (not shown in the image above).
12 Dec 2021: Changed Family Tree Builder 8 GEDCOM version to 5.5.1.
4 Apr 2022: Updated MacFamilyTree 10 fields.
The Family Tree Maker Alternatives Series
- Part 1: How to Scrub Your Data
- Part 2: How to Get Your Tree out of FTM
- Part 3: RootsMagic 7
- Part 4: Reunion 11
- Part 5: MacFamilyTree 8
- Part 6: Family Tree Builder 8
- Part 7: Heredis 2015
- Part 8: Gramps 5
- Part 1: How to Scrub Your Data
- Part 2: How to Get Your Tree out of FTM
- Part 3: RootsMagic 7
- Part 4: Reunion 11
- Part 5: MacFamilyTree 8
- Part 6: Family Tree Builder 8
- Part 7: Heredis 2015
- Part 8: Gramps 5
- Part 9: iFamily for Mac
- Part 10: GEDitCOM II
- Part 11: Legacy Family Tree 8
- Part 12: Ancestral Quest 14
- Part 13: Family Historian 6
- Part 14: Should You Stick with Family Tree Maker?
- Part 15: Brother’s Keeper 7
- Part 16: RootsMagic 8
- How Well Does Ancestry.com Handle GEDCOM?
- Family Tree Maker to GEDCOM to Other Apps Crosswalk
- The Perils of Following the GEDCOM Standard
- Why All Genealogy Apps Should Support GEDCOM 5.5.1
Thank you for making progress on this chart. It will be very useful when I decide to transition from Family Tree Maker 2014. I don’t want lose information as I have a few times in the past.
Very useful comparison and much needed to make progress in developing genealogical software.
Thank you for sharing some very useful information. As an FYI, I am unable to open in One Drive and would appreciate any suggestions. Also, have you already made suggestions as to how we can “fix” the info we will use in making a GEDCOM from FTM 2014? If so, could you please direct me to them. Thanks again!
Sometimes you have to be patient with OneDrive and wait a minute for the spreadsheet to load. Refreshing the page also helps. If it still doesn’t load, reply back and I’ll try Google Drive or Dropbox.
I have articles with suggestions here:
Part 1: How to Scrub Your Data
Part 2: How to Get Your Tree out of FTM
Part 3: Importing Your FTM Tree into RootsMagic 7
Part 4: Importing Your FTM Tree into Reunion 11
I’m a bit slow, and just found that your spreadsheet updates were only on OneDrive. Family Tree Maker 2014 allowed me to create RINs (Person IDs) that export to a GEDCOM. I use RIN numbers to link persons mentioned in my blog to his/her record in my online tree at Rootsweb’s WorldConnect. At first, I was planning to switch to RootsMagic, but was disappointed when I found no permanent RIN number was available for each individual. Legacy may be my choice because it has permanent RINs, and it too can sync with FamilySearch Family Tree.
If you use FTM’s Person ID field, it’s exported as GEDCOM tag REFN. RootsMagic imports REFN into a field called Reference No. Legacy calls it User ID. They’re all in the table.
I know about Legacy’s User ID; that’s what I need. 🙂 The problem is that when I import my FTM GEDCOM into RootsMagic, the ID for the person has been renumbered based on who the home person is, i.e. ID number “1.” In the GEDCOM the home person is numbered “2510.” The GEDCOM ID numbers are not imported. I can’t find a way to preserve the ID numbers from the GEDCOM in RootsMagic. This is a deal breaker for RootsMagic.
In Legacy the difference between a Rec# and a Ref#
Rec # (also known as RIN), is automatically assigned by RootsMagic as people are added to the file. They cannot be changed by the user.
Ref # (or Reference Number) is completely user-defined. It can be a number, characters, combination, etc. – whatever the user wants to store there. A person can also have as many Reference #’s as the user gives them. To add a reference number, you “Add a Fact” and choose “Reference Number” from the list of available fact types.
You can set RM Tools>File Options>General to select which to display after a name.
Record Number is assigned by the system, Reference Number is added by the user.
You can set RootsMagic Tools>File Options>General to select which to display after a name.
Record Number is assigned by the system, Reference Number is added by the user.
Sounds like you found what I was talking about. The user-assigned Reference Number (REFN) transfers from a FTM GEDCOM to RootsMagic, Legacy, Ancestral Quest, and many other applications. In RootsMagic it’s also displayed under Facts in the Edit Person window.
Respectfully, it does not. RootsMagic renumbered all REC#s of my 12,846 people starting with the home person #1685 in the GEDCOM as #1 in RootsMagic. The REF#s were all ~empty~. I could not find a setting in the Import interface for retaining the FTM Person ID numbers.
Sounds like your experience differs from mine, which is not good. The REFNs in my GEDCOM imported into RootsMagic intact without any special import setting. Are you using the latest version of RM? They’ve made some changes to accommodate former FTM users. If you are, then I suggest you submit a bug report to RM at http://support.rootsmagic.com/requests/new. They’re fairly responsive, in my experience.
Keith, are you testing using FTM3? Are there known difference between FtM3 and FTM2014? Also, are there other discussion “lists/sites/” which actively discuss transferring genealogical data between programs? TIA, George.
George, Yes, I tested using FTM 3. I’m aware of only one minor difference between FTM 2014 and FTM 3, having to do with web links in source citations being exported. I discuss it in Part 1: How to Scrub Your Data. Many of the major applications support or forum pages have discussions on moving data between programs, but none of them do so at the level of detail that I do, as far as I’m aware.
What I know about about GEDCOMs is probably in a thimble. What I do know is a program that works in interpreting the GEDCOM and the Photo descriptions in Ancestry. I have tried multiple programs with a combination of results: Most tried would import the GEDCOM but could not interpret the custom fields that I had entered into FTM Mac and some had problems with what I thought were standard fields. Most programs would import my photos, after entering the location on my HD, but would not show the Photo Caption, as it appears in FTM Mac and on Ancestry, but only the photo file name. So here I had quite a mess. Go through 5000+ photos and change the file name to the name I wanted in “Captions” and go through all the “Facts” that were in error which all of the above would have caused sufficient hair loss to require a hair transplant and/or four lens in my glasses instead of the three that now exist.
The last program I tried, turned out to be the best for me. Ancestral Quest imported all the fields including the custom fields without an error (at least I have found none yet) and without any problem imported the assigned photos with the caption field filled in with the correct caption and not the file name.
The program is very plane but seems to function very well and has quite a few neat features, at least in my opinion.
I only hope Ancestry will come up with something that will allow people to import the GEDCOM without having to spend hours
scrubbing the GEDCOM to get it to work in another program.
So thats it for a thimble analysis.
William, you describe the frustration of transferring data from one program or website to another very well. That’s why I’m writing this series. Since you seem to have settled on Ancestral Quest, have you read my review? Also make sure you check the fields highlighted in red in the crosswalk table to ensure your file doesn’t have problems with them.
I know that several people, including me, have complained to Ancestry.com about the problems with their GEDCOM files, but I highly doubt if they’ll correct anything at this point.
Hello Keith:
Thank you for the email! Yes, I did read your reviews and have enjoyed them tremendously. I agree with you that Ancestry has really done a disservice to all their members. There is a right way and a wrong way and I must say they really missed there chance to keep their members onboard. Change is inevitable however, if it is done right, most people really don’t mind.
For what they charge for a yearly subscription they certainly have short changed everyone. We will see what happens from now until 2017 when it is all supposed to end. I think their response will just about fill a thimble. However, I am still hanging on that they have a great plan to announce.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
All the best!
Bill
Please keep these tests coming– this is such an incredibly helpful resource! Particularly interested to see how MacFamilyTree, Heredis, and Family Historian 6 stack up. (Also of interest: as we all survey the software landscape given recent events, any experience with running Family Historian on a Mac would also be a welcome topic, if that’s what Ben has settled on. FH6 seems to get high marks for accuracy and ease of data entry with minimal clicks as well as for robust source management, and there doesn’t seem to be any native Mac software that’s as strong in those particular areas.)
Thanks for the kind words. I’m still working on more reviews, and I need to update my review of Family Historian. Personally, I didn’t care so much for Family Historian, and I ran it on a Mac using both CrossOver and Parallels. But there’s been a recent update to the application that’s supposed to address some of my concerns.
Thanks Keith, that’s good to know! Does GenealogyTools have a primary recommendation for OS X at this point, then? Maybe that’s a separate post… But Reunion has felt like it’s falling behind for a while now, and support seems to frown on discussion about its weaknesses; RootsMagic is robust but it’s being overhauled and there’s no ETA yet for the native Mac version, while the current wrapper version is aesthetically terrible, renders poorly on the Mac, and the interface is overly clicky and labor-intensive to work with; Heredis seems to have weak support; MacFamilyTree looks flashy but seems designed to be more of a hobby program than one for professional work.
It’s a baffling landscape, and a very weird time to be a new genealogist. The genealogy software landscape seems to be in total upheaval, and it’s hard to tell which tools are safe and worthwhile for investing a lot of time and effort into… I don’t want to start entering a bunch of information now and then find in two or three or five years that the program I’ve been using is mangling everything and I can’t export any of it properly.
What do serious, headed-for-professional genealogists use on the Mac these days? (or are all the serious, professional-level programs PC-based?) Obviously “it’s a personal choice” at some level, but isn’t there some sort of commonly accepted industry standard? If not, is anyone working on developing one? (Again, maybe that’s for a separate post– but definitely a subject of interest!)
My recommendation is to stick with whatever you’re currently using, whether it’s Family Tree Maker (FTM), RootsMagic (RM), etc. As you say, the landscape is a bit unsettled right now. Let’s see what shakes out in the next 6 months or so. Personally, I still like FTM, and if MacKiev can fix the bugs and problems, I might just stick with it. I haven’t found anything I like better yet. As to a standard, it depends on what you mean. The standard for genealogical data exchange is GEDCOM, but it’s outdated and not followed very well by most applications. The standard for genealogy is the Genealogical Proof Standard. Serious genealogists uses many different apps, but the major ones are FTM, RM, and Legacy Family Tree. Some people even still use Personal Ancestral File (PAF), which was discontinued, and Brother’s Keeper. It really boils down to which one meets your needs and suits your personal preferences.
Keith,
May I personally say the Onedrive Crosswalk File is a Brilliant Research Tool, I accidentally stumbled across it.
Your discussion with Aran & others is great to read, While I have used FTM / FTW since the DOS days, I have never been fully happy with it due to it’s random use of FACTS Fields. My major program is Relativelyyours 3 (RY3), now 14yrs out of date, I have also been using FTM2014.1 as like a PDF (GEDCOM) Viewer & am actively looking for a perminent replacement of RY3. From what your Crosswalk File does for research, will greatly allow myself to look @ Family Historian 6.
As Non Programmer, I have been looking online to see how to convert a GEDCOM File to SQL / MySQL, so as I could in theory develop a New Genealogy Program with key features of the others & my own custom screen appearance, If your interested in taking a look at a JPEG of a screen capture of RY3, I could email 1 to yourself later.
Big Thanks once again for the Crosswalk Tool.
Kindest Regards,
Darryn P.
(Australia).
Darryn, thanks for the kind words! There will be some updates to the crosswalk once FTM 2017 is released. It’s supposed to be more GEDCOM 5.5.1 compliant. In addition, are you aware that RootsMagic 7 already uses SQL and that there are some SQL Lite Tools for RootsMagic? I don’t care for how RootsMagic handles source citations, but if you don’t mind them being lumped into one free-form text field, you might have a look. It even has the capability to open FTM files directly without the need to go through GEDCOM.
Now that FTM 2017 is in the wild, I am looking forward to your crosswalk update. The crosswalk really answered a lot of questions I had about which apps followed the standard.
Thanks again for the great work.
David
Thanks, David. There isn’t much to update that I know of. FTM included a few GEDCOM changes in versions 2014.1 and 3.1 (which also carried over into 2017), but most other developers don’t seem much interested in GEDCOM compliance. Hopefully FTM will fulfill their commitment to GEDCOM 5.5.1 compliance.
It sounds like you are not a fan of the free form style of sourcing, but isn’t that what is suggested in Ben’s “Simple Citations”? I am struggling with trying to make a decision on using free form or templates and it seems like there is no consensus. I am currently using FTM 2017 for Mac with the thought that I may want to switch to RM when an authentic Mac version is available. Suggestions/thoughts?
Ben’s “Practical Citations” does not advocate pure free form citations. Like me, he suggests using the Title, Author, Publisher, Repository, and Comments fields of something like Family Tree Maker, in addition to Media. I recommend using these fields because they are what GEDCOM uses, which means they should transfer to other applications. That way you can more easily search by one of those fields. Using templates is fine if you don’t plan on your file being used in a different app, but if you do, your citations are likely to be mangled in the process. As for free form text, obviously it gives you the most flexibility to format citations they way you want, say using Evidence Explained. However, I think it’s best to do that yourself and not have an app like RootsMagic dump your citations into free form text in whatever way the developer sees fit. You also lose the ability to search by a specific field and instead have to search the entire free form text field.
Yes, “Practical Citations”. Thank you for correcting me. Apologies! I will go back and re-read it for a better understanding. It’s all a bit confusing for a newbie!
One more question. Do know how (FTM) Person/Fact notes come thru when moving from one app to another? Do they survive, or are they lost?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
The image hosted on OneDrive does not open correctly for me, I can only see the small one on your page. Could you please upload it somewhere else like on Imgur or on nofile.io (last one supports both images and other files)?
Peder, it’s not an image, it’s an Excel file, and it opens just fine. You don’t even need a OneDrive account to open it. You just need to make sure your browser supports opening Excel files.
Am starting to get serious with my famiiy genealogy. Have FTM 2006, AQ15, RM7, and PAF, all running on WinXP.
1. There is supposed to be a free update download for FTM 2006, i.e., FTM version 16. Any knowledge where to find this file?
2. Tried on three browsers (including Win7 to access the crosswalk spreadsheet with no success. Any chance you could email the file?
Robert,
1. Both FTM 2006 & 16 are quite old, and there have been several versions since then. The latest version is 2017, but I don’t think it runs on WinXP (which is no longer supported by Microsoft). See the following links for reference:
a. https://web.archive.org/web/20110720091645/http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/08/family_tree_mak.html
b. https://web.archive.org/web/20060828134035/http://www.familytreemaker.com/help/Updates
c. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Tree_Maker
You’re probably better off using RM7, which is a modern app, and it can import FTM 2006 trees.
2. I moved the crosswalk spreadsheet from OneDrive to Dropbox. You should be able to open and/or download it from there, although you need a Dropbox account to download it. Let me know if you still can’t access it
Robert,
Did you successfully find the FTW 2006 updates, send a reply back if you still require assistance as I may possibly have these on a back CD-ROM & happy to assist.
I am trying to convert from RM7 to FTM2017. Using the GEDCOM has a lot of problems.
Do you know of any methods to convert the data so that it is converted as clean as possible?
Thanks
Roger
Roger, yes, using GEDCOM has lots of problems, but you should be able to upload your tree from RM7 to Ancestry.com and then download it from Ancestry directly into FTM2017. That way you bypass GEDCOM. You’ll need an account at Ancestry if you don’t already have one, but it’s free to sign up and create a tree. If you don’t want to share your tree with anyone else, you can make it private.
Yes I tried that and it worked except. All LDS facts were not transfered. RM does not send them to Ancestry.
Any suggestions? Can you bulk reload the LDS facts using FTM7? I have not been able to find a way to do that?
I was able to get most of the gedcom problems worked except the webtags and shared events.
Roger
FYI: I just noticed GEDCOM Assessment v1.04 – John Cardinal’s interesting report and comparison chart of GEDCOM 5.5.1 import capabilities: https://www.gedcomassessment.com/
Any plans to add webtrees (https://webtrees.net) to your chart or your list of programs critiqued?
Webtrees doesn’t seem to get much traffic, only about 2 page views per month according to Alexa.com. I’ve tried to review all of the major family tree applications and websites, with the exception of MyHeritage. There are several other minor family tree websites and apps, but it doesn’t seem worth my time or that of our readers to review them. Webtrees in particular requires knowledge of how to install an application on a website, something I’ve only done when it’s easy to do so, such as installing WordPress. I’ve had it on my to-do list for some time to take a look at, but I can’t say when that might happen.
Hello, I want to make a gedcom out of my family tree maker. But it never worked. There is always an “error”…. I have ca 22.000 persons. What can i do???
I think you’ll need to contact the company that produces FamilyTreeMaker, MacKiev, for support.