Family Historian User Group

I've been trying for a while to upload my tree to Ancestry, only to keep getting an error message saying that it's not a valid gedcom file. Ancestry are not much help, just keep saying it's my fault!
I found a thread on here from about a year ago, but this never seemed to arrive at a conclusion.
Is anyone doing this successfully, if so what's the secret?
Thanks, David.

ID:2598

First, think carefully what information you want to post to ancestry, check the T&C's carefully you unless you want to donate some of your research to them.

I do have a small subset of my data posted with them, but only key ancestors.

To create a gedcom for them, make a new copy of your file and use the split tree helper to remove everything, but key data.

So delete, multimedia, notes, sources, repositories, submitters etc.

Also you might want to delete any events you don't want to publish.

Finally use a query with the split tree to remove all living people.

Thanks Jane,

I've done what you suggested, but Ancestry still reports an invalid gedcom file.

I have used Res Privata to leave only year of b/m/d in the file, but the place of the event is still there. I have places recorded as place 1 = street address, place 2 = town, place 3 = county. In some case place 1 and/or 2 are blank, so that the place record looks something like ,, Hertfordshire.

I suspect that Ancestry may not like the format of this so just want to delete everything except the county, and have the county as place 1, but I can't see how to do this other than by editing each individual place record.

Is there a quicker way to do this?

David.

If you don't mind using a text editor, I would do a search for ,, and replace with nothing, and single commas on the front can be removed using
replace

PLAC ,
with
PLAC
just make sure the replacement string still has the Space on the end.

It won't be the format of the places which Ancestry is complaining about.

As Jane says, delete everything except key data so in the STHF are you also deleting named lists and flags?

Another thought that I had, now that you mention that you've fed the Gedcom through Res Privata, is that it might not be in the right character set or the header information might not be correct.

Could you post here the start of your Gedcom that you would upload to Ancestry. Open the file in Notepad and copy the first few lines till you come across a line starting with the digit 0. Don't post any lines that have _LIST or _IDS at the start, they shouldn't be there anyway if you are removing named lists.

Jon,
I've checked that I have deleted named lists and flags, but Ancestry still protests! Here are the first few lines of my ged file:

0 HEAD
1 SOUR FAMILY_HISTORIAN
2 VERS 3.1
2 NAME Family Historian
2 CORP Calico Pie Limited
1 FILE D:_DataFamily HistoryAncestryDMancestors.ged
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 CHAR ANSI
1 DEST DISKETTE
1 _UID {EB237452-3C89-404a-8951-473AF15EFCE7}
0 @I1@ INDI

I'm quite happy to post more, or send it to you, there's nothing in it that isn't already on my tree in Genes Reunited.

Jane,
Thanks for the ideas on editing the places. I'll see what Jon comes up with before progressing this any further as it may be a red herring.

David.

I've had a few tries in uploading my Gedcom in various ways to see if I could break Ancestry but I couldn't. All I can think of is to cut back to the minimum (one person) and slowly add details back there till it fails - or not. It could just be your account.

I have had a problem in the distant past when uploading a file to Genes (I know, it's not Ancestry) which disappeared on it's own accord and might possibly have been to corruption as it was being transmitted. Could be the same thing with yours.

Sorry not much more help.

Thanks Jon. I'll create a new 1 person file and if that works then try some experiments by adding things in.
I'll post any findings back here in case it's of use to someone else.
([evil] Of course I could always get hold of a copy of Family Tree Maker, export from FH to FTM, and then upload the FTM file to Ancestry, but I feel that's sorta cheating!).
David.

HMMPFFFF [mad]

Best laid plans etc....even my one person tree was bounced by Ancestry as an invalid gedcom file (thrice)!

Jon, can you spot any significant differences between what's listed below and what you've successfully uploaded?

Thanks, David.

0 HEAD
1 SOUR FAMILY_HISTORIAN
2 VERS 3.1
2 NAME Family Historian
2 CORP Calico Pie Limited
1 FILE D:_DataFamily HistoryTestMTest.GED
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 CHAR ANSI
1 _UID {ADAEE32C-E52C-4378-8A46-90173992BEFD}
0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME Arthur /Miller/
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE 1912
1 DEAT
2 DATE 1996
1 CHAN
2 DATE 7 NOV 2007
3 TIME 16:52:12
0 TRLR

Which web browser are you using?

It will only work with IE - took me 2 months to work it out!

I copied your gedcom file listing above into a text file and uploaded it to Ancestry and it worked with no problems, so I would guess your problem is not with the gedcom file but with a setting or permissions on Ancestry (or maybe a browser issue as Andrew above has suggested).

Jon has also uploaded this test tree successfully, and I can view it.

I'm using Firefox browser, but will try with IE, and also from another computer. Maybe also try clearing cache and cookies as well.

Thanks for the suggestions.

David

David

If you want to continue using Firefox, which I do, then you have to download the IE Tab. In layman's terms this allows Firefox to look like IE and you can upload to, and download image files from, Ancestry without problem.

Andrew - what a star! Worked first time. Thank you very much.

David