Converting Family Tree Maker files???

[John Bartholomew]

I have been using Family Tree Maker on a Mac G3, OS 9.2.2. The G3 went belly-up, but my files are backed up on a Zip disk.

Have recently purchased a G4 eMac running Tiger and just installed Reunion 8.

Is there a way to import my FTM files into Reunion from the Zip disk? I do have an external Zip drive for the new Mac.

John Bartholomew

[Bob Goode]

I have been using Family Tree Maker on a Mac G3, OS 9.2.2. The G3 went belly-up, but my files are backed up on a Zip disk.

Have recently purchased a G4 eMac running Tiger and just installed Reunion 8.

Is there a way to import my FTM files into Reunion from the Zip disk? I do have an external Zip drive for the new Mac.

John Bartholomew
John,
Tiger does not come with the "classic" environment, however, you may be able to install it, if your discs that came with the computer includes the "Classic" OS9.2 system. See if you have the disc "Additional Software & Apple Hardware Test". If so, then check to see if it includes the OS 9.2 system. You will then need to install your old Family Tree Maker into the OS 9 Applications Folder. Then open your old files, convert them into a gedcom to import into Reunion in OS X. There may be an easier way, if so, perhaps someone else can help.

If your Additional Software & Apple Hardware Test disc does not have the OX 9 system, the Apple web site states that OS9 is available for purchase from the Apple Store on line or 1 800 My Apple.

Bob

[SGilbert]

Do you have the FTM program that you can install on your new Mac? If not, I'm sure you can find it on the web.

Create a gedcom and save it. Reunion will import the FTM's gedcom.

[Bob Goode]

Do you have the FTM program that you can install on your new Mac? If not, I'm sure you can find it on the web.

Create a gedcom and save it. Reunion will import the FTM's gedcom.
John,
S Gilbert did not explain that since your FTM application was an OS9 app that you must have the OS9 system on your computer before it will work. Refer to my previous post in this thread.

Bob

[SGilbert]

Yup! As he says. Touche'

[Lil]

Tiger does not come with the "classic" environment, however, you may be able to install it, if your discs that came with the computer includes the "Classic" OS9.2 system. See if you have the disc "Additional Software & Apple Hardware Test". If so, then check to see if it includes the OS 9.2 system. You will then need to install your old Family Tree Maker into the OS 9 Applications Folder. Then open your old files, convert them into a gedcom to import into Reunion in OS X. There may be an easier way, if so, perhaps someone else can help.A friend wishes to install a FTM file, created on a Mac when FTM was still keeping up with Mac OSs, onto a new (to-be-installed) Reunion 8. Reunion will be installed onto her OS 10.3 (Panther). She says that to look at her FTM now, she has to be in Classic (OS 9). Is there any variation from the above directions due to the file being in Classic? It looks as though doing a GEDCOM file, exporting it, and then importing into Reunion should work.
I'd like to be able to help her with this.

Lil

[Bob Goode]

A friend wishes to install a FTM file, created on a Mac when FTM was still keeping up with Mac OSs, onto a new (to-be-installed) Reunion 8. Reunion will be installed onto her OS 10.3 (Panther). She says that to look at her FTM now, she has to be in Classic (OS 9). Is there any variation from the above directions due to the file being in Classic? It looks as though doing a GEDCOM file, exporting it, and then importing into Reunion should work.
I'd like to be able to help her with this.You have the correct plan of action. Everything described above should allow your friend to successfully import the gedcom she made in FTM using Classic into OSX Panther's Reunion application.

[Ed Dorroh]

If you wind up having to make a GEDCOM and importing that into Reunion, let me know, and I will share my experiences and advice. It is NOT TRIVIAL! I went from FTM on a PC via GEDCOM to Reunion on a Mac about a year ago.
The basic issue is that GEDCOM accomodates only the basic information. You can be "smart" with the GEDCOM and get a lot more transferred, but a lot of what you have in FTM will have to be entered by hand.
Ed Dorroh

[B Jansen]

If you wind up having to make a GEDCOM and importing that into Reunion, let me know, and I will share my experiences and advice. It is NOT TRIVIAL! I went from FTM on a PC via GEDCOM to Reunion on a Mac about a year ago. The basic issue is that GEDCOM accomodates only the basic information. You can be "smart" with the GEDCOM and get a lot more transferred, but a lot of what you have in FTM will have to be entered by hand.My cousin (who uses a PC version of FTM 2006) and I do genealogy together, but I am a commited Mac and Reunion user. We would like to be able to transfer data between us on a frequent and ongoing basis as we learn more. What is the "smart" way of GEDCOM transfers for the two of us? We are both willing to edit our programs to tailor them more closely together but neither one of us knows how best to do this. Any help would be most appreciated!

Thanks Reunion community, I've been greatly impressed with the list and the answers already found here for other questions.

[bogong]

I have a cousin who sent me three GEDCOM versions of her Windows FTM files ...

The basic GEDCOM, names and dates only, loaded straight into Reunion.

The GEDCOM 5.5, with all the detail I wanted - sources, etc., loads only one piece of data - a wedfding date/ location, nothing else, not even names.

The FTM GEDOM does the same ...

So I would appreciate any help / advice in transferring these files into Reunion ...

bogong

[Ed Dorroh]

My cousin (who uses a PC version of FTM 2006) and I do genealogy together, but I am a commited Mac and Reunion user. We would like to be able to transfer data between us on a frequent and ongoing basis as we learn more. What is the "smart" way of GEDCOM transfers for the two of us? We are both willing to edit our programs to tailor them more closely together but neither one of us knows how best to do this. Any help would be most appreciated!

Thanks Reunion community, I've been greatly impressed with the list and the answers already found here for other questions.Some of the problems that I ran into, mostly from my original move from FTM to Reunion, but some that I have found in trying to send my files to cousins who use FTM (not prioritized).

- Tag differences – e.g. for Namesake, Reunion uses "1 NAMS," whereas FTM uses "1 _NAMS, 2 PLAC [which includes the information on the namesake]. There are several others in this category. If Reunion doesn't recognize an FTM tag, it will try to generate a special tag to handle it, but this wasn't at all satisfactory to me.

- Prefixes and suffixes (Dr., Col., Jr., etc.) - Reunion uses the tags NSFX and NPFX, whereas FTM uses the tag TITL. This is a problem for all of those "Medical" and other facts (which I can't remember without cranking up my old Windows machine). Worst example is Cause of Death - I had to re-enter all of them.

- Obviously any event or fact that you have "added" to either FTM or Reunion is not likely to be recognized by the other. I thought I could go into FTM, create an additional fact with a GEDCOM tag that matched some of those used by Reunion but not recognized by FTM. But, when you add a fact in FTM you don't even have any visibility into the GEDCOM tag that it uses until you create and look at the actual GEDCOM file, so that didn't work.

- Notes –FTM has a limit on the length of its Notes sections of some 32Kbytes, approximately 8 pages of text. So FTM simply truncates any Reunion Notes that are longer than that. Since I summarize land records, wills, etc. in my Notes, this was a serious limitation of FTM. Reunion has some kind of line character limit in its notes and inserts CONCs there, in the middle of a word if necessary. FTM can't handle this, so the result is many words with blank characters in the middle of them. There are also "word processor" issues between the two, e.g. how underline, bold, italics, ellipses, etc. are handled by each.

- FTM uses a fact/event to hold Military information, whereas Reunion uses a Military Note. Neither can recognize the other's.

- Reunion allows more than one type of marriage note, but doesn't even put the additional ones in the GEDCOM. This, of course, is another non-standard addition to avoid.

- Sources – Reunion uses the form "1 Joe /Jones/, 2 SOUR @S196@, 3 TEXT [text of the source]" whereas FTM uses "1 Joe /Jones/, 2 SOUR @S196@, 3 DATA, 4 TEXT [text of the source]" so FTM simply ignores all of them (I don't remember what happened going the other way)

- I had some others that I can't remember right now, and I am sure there are others that I haven't run across yet.

The ideal solution to going back and forth between FTM and Reunion would be a special purpose "text processor" that would do the conversions for us. A simple "find and replace" macro(s) won't handle many of the issues, I don't think

Until someone writes that processor, I would suggest that each of you create a GEDCOM (one in FTM and the other in Reunion), find the issues and then agree on which one of you is going to "fix" which issue in their GEDCOM. In Reunion, you might be able to "cheat" and redefine some of the tags that it uses to match those that FTM will recognize. I have not tried this so I don't know if it will work, and of course if you do that then the Reunion GEDCOM would be even less compatible with some other non-FTM program.

My comment on "being smart" would include things like neither of you using "additional" facts/events, limiting Notes to 32K, etc. but "being smart" won't fix many of the problems. The rest will have to be done at the GEDCOM level. If you are going to do this "frequently" and want the transfer to be relatively "complete," and if your files are very large at all, I don't see how you can do it without generating that text processor.

Please keep me posted. Although I have converted to Reunion, most of my "cousins" use FTM, so I will soon have the same problem, though my transfers will not be freqent.

We might even suggest the "text processor" as a product for Leister to provide at an additional cost, at least to get from FTM to Reunion. Might even get a few more "converts" that way!

Ed Dorroh

[joyjoyn1]

If you wind up having to make a GEDCOM and importing that into Reunion, let me know, and I will share my experiences and advice. It is NOT TRIVIAL! I went from FTM on a PC via GEDCOM to Reunion on a Mac about a year ago.
The basic issue is that GEDCOM accomodates only the basic information. You can be "smart" with the GEDCOM and get a lot more transferred, but a lot of what you have in FTM will have to be entered by hand.Hi,

I just recently bought my first mac. I have an ibook g4, and had a pc laptop with an old version of family tree maker. I was wondering if anyone could help me with transferring these files over to my new mac. Also, from what I understand, family tree maker does not make a new mac version, so I was wondering how family tree maker compares with the reunion software package? From what it sounds like, if I can figure out how to make a gedcom file, there should be a way to transfer, however, I am not sure if my old version of family tree maker can make a gedcom. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Stacy

[AE Palmer]

Hi,

I just recently bought my first mac. I have an ibook g4, and had a pc laptop with an old version of family tree maker. I was wondering if anyone could help me with transferring these files over to my new mac. Also, from what I understand, family tree maker does not make a new mac version, so I was wondering how family tree maker compares with the reunion software package? From what it sounds like, if I can figure out how to make a gedcom file, there should be a way to transfer, however, I am not sure if my old version of family tree maker can make a gedcom. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Stacy

Congratulations on getting the iBook. With time, you will find it to be a very nice package to use.

As for comparing FTM and Reunion, I can say with certitude, everybody on this list uses Reunion and does so because it serves their needs. That said, Reunion is immensely powerful and easy to learn to use. I find it very well laid out and carefully crafted with very few bugs.

Since you are new to both the Mac platform and Reunion, do spend some time browsing the Reunion Manual – printing out pages of interest is not a bad idea either. Ideally, you should learn both the keyboard and mouse command sets. Both have their pros and cons. In any event, pay close attention to the Cmd-A command (Find Anything) as it will become your friend very quickly.

As long as your version of FTM can generate a version 5 (or 5.5) GEDCOM file, Reunion will read it. The only caveat is: GEDCOM transfers do not handle custom data well, so be prepared to reenter unusual information.

[joyjoyn1]

Thank you very much! I will check to see if I can create a gedcom file with my ftm software. I have been looking into where to buy the reunion software, any words of wisdom?

[David G. Kanter]

I have been looking into where to buy the reunion software, any words of wisdom?Go to the Leister Productions "Where To Buy Reunion" Web page (http://www.leisterpro.com/doc/Buy.html). There you'll find a link to "Buy Reunion, right now!" from their on-line store as well as other sources of Reunion. I'd encourage you to use that link and buy directly from Leister Productions. While you might find Reunion available for a few dollars less elsewhere, in my opinion, those few extra dollars going directly to the developer are making an additional investment in the future of Reunion.

[Ed Dorroh]

I just recently bought my first mac. I have an ibook g4, and had a pc laptop with an old version of family tree maker. I was wondering if anyone could help me with transferring these files over to my new mac.... Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. I went through this about a year ago, also just after I had bought a Mac, hence my comment. I still have a stack of notes, etc. that I made at that time and some questions/answers from contacts with Leister. If you are interested, contact me off list (so we don't waste other people's time) and I will dig out the notes and maybe save you some time in the conversion - jus97now@ev1.net.
If you would rather do it on this list that's OK too - I'll just have to summarize my notes and post them here.
Ed Dorroh

[NanKNels]

If you wind up having to make a GEDCOM and importing that into Reunion, let me know, and I will share my experiences and advice. It is NOT TRIVIAL! I went from FTM on a PC via GEDCOM to Reunion on a Mac about a year ago.
The basic issue is that GEDCOM accomodates only the basic information. You can be "smart" with the GEDCOM and get a lot more transferred, but a lot of what you have in FTM will have to be entered by hand.
Ed Dorroh
Ed
I have years of work dating back to 1087 on my Gateway in Family Tree Maker 7.5
I need a new computer and would love to go back to mac (new desktop Mac with the intel chip) and use Reunion for now on. BUT... I need to be sure that I can transfer ALL my data from FTM to Reunion without any problems. I have over 700 names and do not want to retype any of the information.
What do you suggest?

[theKiwi]

If you would rather do it on this list that's OK too - I'll just have to summarize my notes and post them here.
Ed DorrohI would like to see that. I have transferred parts of several files to Reunion and am not aware that I didn't get everything I thought I'd get.

Roger

[Ed Dorroh]

Ed
I have years of work dating back to 1087 on my Gateway in Family Tree Maker 7.5
I need a new computer and would love to go back to mac (new desktop Mac with the intel chip) and use Reunion for now on. BUT... I need to be sure that I can transfer ALL my data from FTM to Reunion without any problems. I have over 700 names and do not want to retype any of the information.
What do you suggest?

As far as I know, there is not a way to make the conversion without some retyping. See my other post today in which Roger asked me to post my list of issues in that conversion. Maybe someone a lot smarter than I am in the GEDCOM world could help you minimize that retyping.
I had about 1200 names and 225 sources and I got through it and am happy that I made the conversion, but it was not trivial to say the least.

[theKiwi]

As far as I know, there is not a way to make the conversion without some retyping. See my other post today in which Roger asked me to post my list of issues in that conversion.

I've only seen this post by you (Ed Dorroh) show up today?

Roger