* creating a file for Ancestry with no facts for living individuals

[BillH]

When creating a GEDCOM to upload to Ancestry I've always done a 4 step process that I gleaned from postings in the forum.

1. Use File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File to create a gedcom of all individuals. Use Split Tree Helper on this file to delete all note, multimedia, source, and repository records and also to delete all facts for all individuals.
2. Use File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File to create a second gedcom of all people. Use Split Tree Helper on this file to delete all note, multimedia, and repository records and also delete all living individuals.
3. Merge the first file into the second file.
4. Use the Clean Living People plugin to change the name of the living individuals to "Living".

With all of the recent changes to the plugin Export Gedcom File and other changes to FH, I was wondering if there is an easier way of creating a gedcom to upload to Ancestry.com that ensures the upload file has NO facts for any living individual and also has all living individuals names changed to "Living".

Thanks!

[tatewise]

May I suggest these three simpler but more comprehensive steps:

1. Use File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File to create a Gedcom of all Individuals with all Note, Multimedia, and Repository records excluded.
2. Use the Clean Living People plugin to change the Name of the living Individuals to "Living" and remove all their Facts.
3. Use the Export Gedcom File plugin to create a more Ancestry compatible Gedcom for such as Fact Witnesses, Age & Address data, Place records, and many more.

[BillH]

Mike,

I'll give that a try. Sure would be easier than creating two gedcoms and merging them.

Thanks!

[BillH]

Mike,

The steps you suggested gives me pretty close to what I want. Just as good as the old 4 step method I had used.

However, there are five things I would also like to remove from the final GEDCOM file to be uploaded to Ancestry that were not removed using this method. Note that these were probably not removed by my old 4 step method either.

1. Nicknames for living people. Maybe this could be an additional option for the Clean Living People plugin?
2. Fact notes. By this I mean the note that shows on the Facts tab of the Property Box. Despite telling File > Import/Export > Export to exclude all notes, these are being included in the output file. Maybe this could be an additional option for the Export Gedcom File plugin?
3. Citation notes. By this I mean the note that shows in the Sources For: pane of the Property Box after Text From Source:. Despite telling File > Import/Export > Export to exclude all notes, these are being included in the output file. Maybe this could be an additional option for the Export Gedcom File plugin?
4. Source notes. By this I mean the note that shows at the bottom of the Main tab for the source. Again, despite telling File > Import/Export > Export to exclude all notes, these are being included in the output file. Maybe this could be an additional option for the Export Gedcom File plugin?
5. Source Text from Source:. By this I mean the Text From Source: field on a sources Main tab. Maybe this could be an additional option for the Export Gedcom File plugin?

Am I doing something wrong? Are there some options that I have missed somewhere that would accomplish any of these things?

Thank!

[davidm_uk]

I'm also struggling a bit to get a satisfactory export GED for Ancestry, and been playing around with File...Import/Export...Export GED, Clean Living People plugin, Export Gedcom File plugin, and Res Privata without success.

I have noted that none of these seem to remove Notes from Family records - I had to delete my Ancestry tree quite quickly when I noticed this one!

Where I'd like to get to is for, for all living people:
Preserve year date only for birth and marriage, remove all other data associated with birth and marriage facts.
Remove all other facts completely, including citations and sources and all associated notes.
(could assume all media records and files will be removed by the Export Plugin?)

In terms of defining "living people" the options provided by Res Privata have always served me very well:

Capture1.JPG (55.3 KiB) Viewed 15676 times

Capture2.JPG (52.74 KiB) Viewed 15676 times

I cann't completely work out what some of the selection criteria for living people do in the Clean Living People plugin). Maybe the operations for Flag Living People, Clean Living People and Export Gedcom should be separate plugins, for simplicity and flexibility.

[tatewise]

Hi Bill, it should be possible to fix many of those issues although it probably needs an extra step at present.
It seems you are asking for ALL Notes and Text From Source to be removed everywhere not just from Living Individuals!
If it is only for 'sensitive' notes and text, then use the [[private]] note text feature as explained below.
If it is only for Living Individuals, have you employed all the options in Clean Living People to remove Notes and Sources?
For those latter two cases no extra step will be necessary.

• 1. Why only Nicknames? There are also Name Prefix, Name Suffix, Given Name Used, and other subsidiary Name fields. The Clean Living People plugin should really clear them all (unless No Change is chosen) and I suggest you raise that as a separate topic for Jane to handle. There is also the Title attribute to consider.
  In the meantime, in the Export Gedcom File Plugin, on the Extra Options tab, try setting Person Nickname 2 NICK to Promote to 1 _NICK which should be discarded by Ancestry but will affect everyone.
• 2. 3. 4. The File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File option only excludes Note records which are the ones that appear in the Notes tab of the Records Window and linked/shared by other records. In the Notes tab of any Property Box they have the yellow folder icon.
  To remove the Note fields you mention, use File > Split Tree Helper on the initial exported Gedcom and in Notes bottom left choose Delete all note fields within records, see Help for details.
  If it is only 'sensitive' Note text that needs removing then use the [[private]] notes feature, which can be employed in the File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File command or the Export Gedcom File Plugin, and avoid the File > Split Tree Helper step.
• 5. If it is only 'sensitive' parts of some Text From Source fields, then use the [[private]] notes feature above which applies to any multi-line text field.

David, it is probably easier to discuss specifically Clean Living People plugin options in a separate thread.
BTW: Since all these operations must be run on an exported Gedcom, the Media records can be removed at the initial File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File step rather than wait until the Export Gedcom File Plugin, but you are correct that it will remove all Media not only via Media records but also the lesser used local Media objects.

[BillH]

Hi Mike,

I'll try to respond to all your questions and comments.

I would like to remove all names, nicknames, prefixes, suffixes, notes, text, and facts for living individuals. For living individuals I would like to have just the name "Living" and nothing else. I believe I employed all of the options in Clean Living People to remove Notes and Sources. I will raise this with Jane. I had forgotten about all those other name related fields.

What I had tried to say is that I want ALL Notes and Text From Source to be removed from all sources and citations for all individuals, both living and non-living. After looking at this a bit further, I think it would be nice to be able to keep Notes on sources, but I could live without this.

It isn't just sensitive notes that I'm referring to so the private note method won't work for me.

Likewise, I don't think I can use the option in the Export Gedcom File Plugin to promote the NICK field. I would like to keep nicknames for non-living individuals and also there are all the other name related fields that need removing for living individuals.

I think you explained to me once before that the option to exclude Note Records in the export dialog applies only to Note Records and not to notes on sources and citations. I guess it is pretty clear in the dialog, but I keep mis-interpreting it to mean excluding all Notes. I guess that is why I was using the 4 step method I was using before which did use split tree helper to remove these notes. I will try that in conjunction with the 3 steps you had suggested. I'll insert it before I use Clean Living People.

It would really be nice if it wasn't such a hard process to accomplish creating such a GEDCOM. Having to use the export dialog, the Split Tree Helper, the Clean Living People plugin, and the Export Gedcom File plugin to accomplish this is kind of a pain. Maybe someday Calico will improve their export dialog to have more options.

Thanks for your help!

[tatewise]

The difficulty is that there are too many fields that a user might want to include or exclude depending on various conditions such as Private flag, Living flag, any other flag, Birth Date after a nominated year and no Death Date, a Named List, etc.
Your combination of options might not be too large but Calico Pie would have got to cater for what anybody might need.
Even your own description seems to be changing especially regarding Note fields.
You earlier mentioned 2. Fact Notes on the Facts tab, but your latest posting does not mention them.
The snag is that almost every item of data has an associated Note that may be local or linked.
e.g.
Individual/Family/Source/Media/etc record Note
Name field Note
Fact event/attribute Note
Citation Note
and there are more

So using the Split Tree Helper to exclude all Note fields does not do what you want because it is not selective.

The only way you are likely to be able to remove such data selectively is to write your own Plugin.

I am fascinated why you feel the need to remove so much from non-living Individuals.

[BillH]

Mike,

I agree that it would probably be hard to come up with all the possible permutations. I was just wishing and dreaming.

I did forget to mention 2. Fact Notes this time, but I did still want to exclude them as well.

I want to exclude all these notes because I often use them to contain my ramblings about things related to these individuals or to contain questions I might have about information I've gathered and I don't want these out on Ancestry where everyone else has access to them, but I've never really gotten used to using the private notes feature so it wouldn't be easy to go back and change all my notes.

I went ahead and added back in a step for using the Split Tree Helper. In conjunction with the other steps it gives me close to what I would like to have. There are a couple of things that are not quite what I want, but I can live with them for now.

1. Not all name related fields are removed for living individuals by the Clean Living People plugin. I have posted a separate message about this for Jane to reply to.

2. No Text From Source is removed on the citations and sources. I really don't need this, but it doesn't really hurt anything. It makes for awfully long entries for some of my sources and citations, but nobody on Ancestry will probably read them anyway. Too bad the Split Tree Helper doesn't have a Delete all Where within Source fields option.

I really want to thank you and Jane for all the work you have done to create your plugins. I would be lost without them. I don't think I am up to learning LUA and the in's and out's of FH to the degree required to write plugins. I applaud all of you that have done so, but it might be beyond me at this point.

I have attached the process I am now using to create my file in case it might be helpful to someone else. If you see anything in it that could be improved on, let me know.

EDIT: I have removed the file Create file for uploading to Ancestry.docx as the procedure didn't really work the way I wanted it to. A better method and procedure are available later in this topic.

Thanks

[BillH]

Well... I spoke too soon. I had forgotten until I had uploaded the file to Ancestry that I really don't want citations and sources linked to the living individuals. The source titles often have the names of the individuals in them.

So now I see why I used the old method I used. This method created two copies of the GEDCOM, one with no Facts for everyone, the other with all Facts but no Living individuals, then these two GEDCOM files were merged. Mike, I think you provided most of my previous method awhile ago.

The only other way I can see to accomplish this would be if the Clean Living People plugin could delete citations and sources for living people.

So... I guess it is back to my old method with the additional step of running the final file through Export Gedcom File to make it compatible with Ancestry.

I tried the old method, but I can't get it to work... FH keeps crashing. I created a new post in the General Usage forum to address that issue as it isn't plugin related.

Thanks again!

[tatewise]

I presume the Source Citations giving you the problem are Individual/Family <whole record> Source Citations associated with the living people, or perhaps Source Citations on their Name fields?

All the Facts and associated Source Citations are removed from living people by the Clean Living People Plugin.
So removing ALL their Source Citations is another enhancement for the Plugin.

[BillH]

Yes Mike, that is the case. I'll suggest this to Jane as well.

Thanks.

[BillH]

With the fix referred to in File > Merge/Compare File... crashing Family Historian (14699), I am now able to complete the merge so I'm back looking at creating my file for uploading to Ancestry.

I can live with the Text From Source not being deleted from sources and citations as mentioned above. However, I would really like to get rid of the nicknames and other name related fields on living individuals.

Is there an easy way using a text editor to find all 2 NICK records and delete them regardless of what is after the 2 NICK? If there is, I could use the same technique on 2 NPFX, 2 NSFX, and other name related fields.

Thanks

[tatewise]

You can delete those subsidiary name fields using a Query.
In an Individual Query add Columns for each field such as Nickname, Name Prefix, Name Suffix, etc.
You may need to cater for multiple instances of the Name field with those subsidiary fields.

In the Result Set, sort each such column in turn so the values come together.
Select all the values and hit the Delete key or use Edit > Delete.

It would be easy to set Row filter to only include those whose Name is Living.
Thus only those subsidiary fields will be deleted.

[BillH]

Mike,

That worked fine for eliminating the name related fields. I've added it to my methodology.

I do have some comments on the final output from Export Gedcom File. I am able to set up most things as I would like using existing options, but there are some that I can't. I find the information that gets put into Note fields with the Ω symbol of little use and hard to work with in Ancestry and would like to eliminate all of them. There are other fields which I also do not need.

Here are some options that would really be helpful in the program. Pardon me if they are already there and I'm just overlooking them.

1. Fact Address - An option to remove entirely. I currently am using Tidy Address Field as this seems to exclude it from Ancestry.

2. Child Count - An option to remove entirely.

3. Marriage Count - An option to remove entirely.

4. Record Flags - An option to remove entirely. I believe that is what is causing these Ω boxes.

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5. All age fields - An option to remove entirely. I have un-ticked Fact Husband Age 2 HUSB, Fact Person Age 2 AGE:, and Fact Wife Age 2 WIFE:, but I end up with things like this. Every census entry ends up with these unsourced citations which only have the age in them.

image3.jpg (86.81 KiB) Viewed 15528 times

I'm also getting some things I don't understand.

1. I am getting these on marriages. There are a couple of Ω boxes after the marriage box I don't want. It looks like maybe they are caused by a citation on the marriage? Is there any way to keep the actual marriage box and eliminate whatever is causing the Ω boxes?

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(see continuation in next message)

[BillH]

(continued from previous message)

2. I am getting these on some folks. Not sure what is causing these.

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When I view it I get this.

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Do you know what is causing the box with the Ω symbol? I don't want these boxes, but don't really know what is causing this.

3. In the Gedcom file I am getting these for some individuals.

...
1 EVEN
2 TYPE Ω <whole record citation>
2 SOUR @S43@
...

They look like maybe they are caused by citations on the name of an individual? Not really sure. Do you know what is causing these?

Sorry for so many questions, but I'm so close to getting a file ready to upload.

Thanks!

[tatewise]

Sorry about those issues, but goes to show what a mess Ancestry has made of handling standard GEDCOM.

1. Fact Address ~ Ancestry ignores the ADDRess field, so either Tidy Address Field or Leave Address Alone will retain the ADDRess field in GEDCOM for Ancestry to discard.
2. Child Count ~ At the Split Tree Helper step use the Facts > Delete all facts listed below option and Edit List.
3. Marriage Count ~ ditto
4. Record Flags ~ At the Split Tree Helper step tick the Delete All Flags option.
   (Plugin also has Record Flags 1 _Flgs: Remove entirely option.)
5. All age fields ~ I presume only Census Events have Age defined. Will investigate Unsourced Citations. You may have to live with the Age in the Fact local Note. It does not give away anything extra that cannot be deduced from the Dates.

See the Plugin Help & Advice for Output Formats for (ANC) Ancestry Family Tree. The Ω signal synthetic Facts, Sources, etc, but should always have some descriptive text to explain what they are. Will have a look at why they are missing.

1. Check those Marriages and in the light of that Help & Advice can the Ω Sources be explained?
2. For Individuals does the Help & Advice for Notes and Sources explain them?
3. Those are synthesised <whole record> Source Citations for the Individual converted to custom Events because Ancestry does not allow whole record citations, but I cannot explain why all that Ω <whole record citation> text is not shown.

Most of the Ω stuff is synthetic substitutes for standard GEDCOM.
Unfortunately, if you want to use Ancestry extensively with so much data eliminated you may have to adjust the features used in Family Historian or learn how to write Plugins.

[tatewise]

Here are the results of my investigations.

All Age fields ~ Each Unsourced Citation is Ancestry mishandling the standard GEDCOM AGE field.
You could try complaining to Ancestry but don't hold your breath.
The alternative is to tick the Other Options for Ages to Move To Fact Note and suffer the Ω Note Sources, because Ancestry does not allow Fact local Notes so the Plugin substitutes those Sources.
Or use a text editor on the Gedcom file and remove all lines starting 2 AGE or 3 AGE.
BTW: While investigating this I discovered a minor bug for Family facts with Husband/Wife Ages and Witnesses.)

Ω synthetic facts ~ These should say Ω <whole record citation> but Ancestry is hiding the text.
FYI: I am sure that text was not hidden when I tested earlier versions of Ancestry.
Those synthetic facts are nothing to do with the preceding Birth or Marriage facts.
Maybe use a text editor on the Gedcom file and replace <whole record citation> with say Whole Record Citation.
Otherwise, you need to move each such <whole record> Source Citation to a Fact.
e.g. In your example, move the USA Census of 1860 to the Birth event or a new Census event.

The next version of the Plugin will fix the whole record citation problem and the minor bug.
I will consider an option to remove Ages entirely, but not yet convinced it is necessary.

You could try complaining to Ancestry about all the standard Gedcom structures it does not support.

[BillH]

Hi Mike,

Yes... I agree. The problem is all with Ancestry and the way they handle standard GEDCOM and even more in how they display the information which is sometimes awful.

I've reviewed what you said and after thinking about it, I will do the following which will do what I need.

1 - I will use Tidy Address just in case they ever decide to support addresses (as if I really believe that).
2 & 3 - I should have thought of getting rid of these at the Split Tree Helper step.
4 - I will use the option in the plugin to exlude these.
5 - I can get rid of the ages in the same way I am getting rid of the name related fields such as nickname, by using a query. I agree that these don't really hurt anything, but they also don't really add anything and I hate the way Ancestry handles them.

On the other items, I looked around in the help, but I admit I didn't really see anything at first glance. I have looked at it more and had a bit more time to digest it and I think I see what is going on a bit better (although I am still confused).

1 - Rebecca Gilbert. These are source citations on a 1 FAMS record getting converted to <whole record citation>.
2 - Mary E Williamson. These are source citations on a 1 FAMC record getting converted to <whole record citation>.
3 - I'm not sure what I was seeing here.

I'm seeing other situations where things are getting converted to <whole record citation> or individual record note.

I guess I don't really understand what constitutes whole record citations. For example, for Rebecca Gilbert:

1 NAME Rebecca /Gilbert/
2 SOUR @S2590@
3 PAGE Page 486
1 SEX F
1 FAMS @F5327@
1 SOUR @S2590@
2 PAGE Page 486

is getting changed to this:

1 NAME Rebecca /Gilbert/
2 SOUR @S2590@
3 PAGE Page 486
1 SEX F
1 FAMS @F5327@
1 EVEN
2 TYPE Ω <whole record citation>
2 SOUR @S2590@
3 PAGE Page 486

What is the source citation after the FAMS record for? Is it for the citation in FH on the marriage date? Why would this be a whole record citation?

I'm sure your plugin is changing these because Ancestry doesn't understand the original GEDCOM. In all these cases, I am pretty sure I don't want to actually get rid of the information, I just don't like how Ancestry handles the converted GEDCOM out of your plugin. The way it gets displayed is awful. I guess I'll just have to live with it.

Thanks for your patience. My head is really starting to spin. I've been looking at this all day and I still don't completely undertand what is going on.

Thanks!

[BillH]

Hi Mike,

I posted my previous reply before I saw your latest reply (I was composing it in Notepad and then cutting/pasting it here). I will respond to your last reply here.

All Age fields -

I don't see either option as being a good one. As I said in my last reply, I'll just use a query to get rid of the ages before running your plugin. I'm glad all my questions resulted in you finding a minor bug. Glad I could help.

Ω synthetic facts -

Those synthetic facts are nothing to do with the preceding Birth or Marriage facts.

I am still having a bit of a hard time getting my head around these. What citation is getting turned into the synthetic fact in this case? Mary only has 2 citations in FH. One is on her name and one is on her birth. Is it the one on the name that is getting converted?

What I don't understand is why Ancestry is displaying two boxes. The first box shows everything and is linked to the source just fine. What is the purpose of the second box?

e.g. In your example, move the USA Census of 1860 to the Birth event or a new Census event.

But there already is a citation on the birth event. There is one on the name and one on the birth.

Is there a way in FH to tell if a citation is on a fact or on the whole record?

I will consider an option to remove Ages entirely, but not yet convinced it is necessary.

Nice if you decide to, but I can get rid of them in the query as well.

I don't think I'll waste my breath complaining to Ancestry about all the standard Gedcom structures it does not support. I can't see that it would do any good.

Again, thanks for your patience.

[tatewise]

Using the Query method to remove Age fields is one I overlooked

You can find <whole record> Citations in FH in the Sources For yellow pane.
In the drop-list at the top you will find <whole record> listed, and just like any other item, if it has an asterisk * then the Individual record (or Family record) has a Source Citation.

Consider your GEDCOM example :-

Code: Select all

0 @I123@ INDI
1 NAME Rebecca /Gilbert/
2 SOUR @S2590@	~ this is a level 2 Source Citation on the level 1 NAME field
3 PAGE Page 486
1 SEX F
1 BIRT
2 SOUR @S1234@	~ this is a level 2 Source Citation on the level 1 BIRT event
1 FAMS @F5327@
1 SOUR @S2590@	~ this is a level 1 Source Citation on the level 0 INDI record
2 PAGE Page 486

The way to read a GEDCOM record is that each line with a level 1 leading digit belongs to the whole record.
Each line with a level 2 leading digit belongs to the previous level 1 item.
Each line with a level 3 leading digit belongs to the previous level 2 item.

If you were to prefix each digit with the same number of space or tab characters then the indented lines would be much clearer and some tools list Gedcom that way.

Code: Select all

0 @I123@ INDI
	1 NAME Rebecca /Gilbert/
		2 SOUR @S2590@	~ this is a level 2 Source Citation on the level 1 NAME field
			3 PAGE Page 486
	1 SEX F
	1 BIRT
		2 SOUR @S1234@	~ this is a level 2 Source Citation on the level 1 BIRT event
	1 FAMS @F5327@
	1 SOUR @S2590@		~ this is a level 1 Source Citation on the level 0 INDI record
		2 PAGE Page 486

The 1 SOUR @S2590@ line could be much earlier, and all the level 1 lines could actually be in any order, providing they take their level 2 & 3 lines with them, so the following is equivalent to the above.

Code: Select all

0 @I123@ INDI
	1 SOUR @S2590@		~ this is a level 1 Source Citation on the level 0 INDI record
		2 PAGE Page 486
	1 BIRT
		2 SOUR @S1234@	~ this is a level 2 Source Citation on the level 1 BIRT event
	1 SEX F
	1 FAMS @F5327@
	1 NAME Rebecca /Gilbert/
		2 SOUR @S2590@	~ this is a level 2 Source Citation on the level 1 NAME field
			3 PAGE Page 486

[BillH]

Hi Mike,

I think I "knew" most of this at one time, but I had obviously forgotten enough to be very confused. Thanks for clarifying.

Indenting does help understand it a lot. I see the utility GedPad in the knowledge base. I tried it, but can't seem to make the font larger and it won't allow me to type alt-234 for the omega symbol. Can you recommend a good utility to edit GEDCOM files?

So in my example of Rebecca Gilbert, the 1 SOUR @S2590@ record is a citation on the whole INDI record ( therefore a whole record citation). Now I understand why you said it wasn't related to the preceding birth or marriage facts.

I began to think. How did I get this citation? I don't even know how to add a whole record citation. Then I remembered that I had probably used the automatic source citations feature to add her to FH. So I ran a quick test.

If I add an individual with automatic source citations enabled, that individual gets a whole record citation added to it. It also gets a citation on the name. I would expect the citation on the name, but I had no idea it was also adding the whole record citation.

If I add an individual with automatic source citations disabled, there is no whole record citation added. There is also no citation added to the name. This is what I would expect, I have to manually add the citation to the name.

The same thing appears to happen when adding a spouse and creating a family. If automatic source citations is enabled, a whole record citation is added to the FAM record. Otherwise it is not.

I've looked through the help and can't find an answer to whether or not you can turn off the creation of the whole record citations when using automatic source citations. Do you know if there is a way that I'm overlooking?

So, I'm guessing I don't even need these citations. In fact, I can't even think of a good reason to have a whole record citation on an INDI record or a FAM record. I've never intentionally added one myself that I'm aware of (as I say, I wouldn't know how). I am probably missing something though. Is there a good reason to have a whole record citation on an INDI or FAM record?

If I wanted to get rid of these whole record citations in FH, is there an easy way to do that for everybody at once? I see how to get rid of one on a single individual using the sources pane. Of course, if automatic source citations is going to just keep adding these to my file then I would do this only as part of the process of creating the file to upload to Ancestry.


Thanks!

[PeterR]

A good text editor, which I use for all sorts of applications including GEDCOM and LUA files is PSPad.
See fhugdownloads:contents:pspad_editor|> Utility ~ PSPad Editor.

[tatewise]

GedPad
It seems you can change font but not size. Georgia and Verdana are larger than most.
But the chosen font needs to support UTF-8 Unicode characters.
It seems to accept some Alt-codes Ok, but I also could not find the Ω code.
However, it does copy & paste Ω from elsewhere including the Character Map.
Beware that it appears in the edit boxes at the bottom as a vertical bar, but when inserted into the text above appears OK.

I simply use the Windows standard Notepad text editor, but that does not 'understand' Gedcom.
As Peter says, PSPad is good and can be made to 'understand' Gedcom but probably not as well as GedPad.

Automatic Source Citation
When you Set Auto-Citation one of the options is to enable/disable Automatically add citation to new Individual, Family and Note records.
Search the Help for Set Automatic Source Citation.
(BTW: I am currently looking at that in FH V5 but should be similar in FH V6.)
Some users like to know what evidence supports the existence of an Individual or Family as a whole, as opposed to just their Name, but is a personal choice.

Delete Names, Citations, Ages, etc
You can delete in bulk using the Query method used to delete NICK, and AGE, etc.

Use an Indiviudal Query with Columns for:
Name Nickname = %INDI.NAME[1].NICK%
Name Prefix = %INDI.NAME[1].NPFX%
Name Suffix = %INDI.NAME[1].NSFX%
and repeat for ...NAME[2]... et seq for Alternate Names
Record Source = %INDI.SOUR[1]% without the > near end

Use a Fact Query with Columns for:
Individual Age = %FACT.AGE%
Husband Age = %FACT.HUSB%
Wife's Age = %FACT.WIFE%

[BillH]

Mike and Peter, thanks for the editor suggestions, I'll try these out. I was trying GedPad because of the indentation. Too bad about the text size. It is too small for my eyes.

Mike,

When you Set Auto-Citation one of the options is to enable/disable Automatically add citation to new Individual, Family and Note records.

I set the citation using the automatic source citations pane. I don't see this option anywhere on the pane. Can you show me exactly where it is? Is there a different way to set the automatic source citation that might have this option?

Search the Help for Set Automatic Source Citation.

I did this search yesterday and also searched for every combination of auto or automatic source citation I could think of. If there is any mention of the whole record citation being created, I'm missing it. What topic is it actually in?

I'll try out the query method you described.

Thanks