* Exporting Notes

[peemik]

FH has the ability to have multiple notes for each individual etc., however when exporting to a GEDCOM and then importing to other programs they only seem to accept one note per individual (with as many CONT tags as necessary)
and only accept the first or last NOTE tag. Is there a way around this please?

[tatewise]

Welcome to the FHUG.

Multiple instances of Notes is a standard GEDCOM feature, and in my experience, many other products do support them.
e.g. I have just checked Heredis, Legacy & RootsMagic and they all import all the Notes.

Please specify the products that you find do not handle multiple Note instances.

[peemik]

Thank you for the reply. Up to now I have only tried importing into the program I used for many years before I switched to FH and that is Ancestral Quest, I was in the process of trying other programs but I haven't had time yet.

[peemik]

I've just looked again at my AQ import and it had actually imported the notes but combined all the multiple notes for an individual into one note each separated by a carriage return/line feed and I missed it as I was wrongly expecting it to retain them as separate items, but thanks for your help.

[tatewise]

Yes, it is quite a common tactic used by products to combine multiple Note instances into a single Note.

In order to cater for the variety of GEDCOM customisations used by FH and most other products, it is better to use the plugin Export Gedcom File available from the Plugin Store rather than the native FH Export > GEDCOM File command which retains all the FH customisations and does not cater for other products.

[peemik]

Thank you again. I've been playing with the Export Gedcom plugin today but whilst it does cater for all eventualities and specific programs, I have found the number of options overwhelming, sorry, I know it's your work and must have taken a lot of research etc., I will use it for the next time I upload to Ancestry though.

[tatewise]

There are no prizes for using all the options, but it does illustrate how different products 'adjust' the GEDCOM specification.

Initially, stick with the default settings automatically established by choosing the GEDCOM Destination option.
If users find that does not satisfy their needs then they often discuss the required settings in a posting here.

If you are focussed on interacting with Ancestry then you have two alternative plugin options.

1. My Export Gedcom File plugin tries to retain much of your Project data details but since you create a new Ancestry Family Tree each time the GEDCOM is uploaded you lose the history of Ancestry 'hints'.
2. Use the Ancestry Synchronization plugin that retains fewer details but preserves the history of Ancestry 'hints' as explained in Synchronizing Your Tree With Ancestry to Exploit Hints.

[peemik]

I beta tested Roots Magic 8 and absolutely hated it. The fact that you lose hints by uploading a new tree doesn't really bother me as I really only have it there for DNA matches and upload maybe once a year.

In terms of other software as I said previously I used Ancestral Quest for many years (about 30) and I always used it because it was simple to use, with no bells or whistles. I did try others in that time including FH3 but always stuck with it. Eventually it became obvious that AQ was no longer being updated or improved and when my friend and I started a major project with the surname Battye we had to both have the same software and we settled on FH. It was a steep learning curve getting used to it and I had to double check all the previous work I had done, to put right the things that didn't import correctly.

[Mark1834]

FH Export > GEDCOM File command .. retains all the FH customisations and does not cater for other products.

Aren’t you being a little dismissive of the standard export here? While CP have clearly judged it doesn’t make commercial sense for them to spend the time that you do to tailor export to multiple specific products, there are a fair number of customisations in the export window that deal with FH-specific features.

If you have a fairly basic tree and don’t use the FH power-user features, it may be all you need.

[tatewise]

I stand by what I said.

1. Yes, the FH Export > GEDCOM File options allow a few structures to be excluded and a few converted to Notes.
2. Most FH custom features remain as 'user-defined' GEDCOM tags with an underscore prefix to make them strictly valid GEDCOM but mostly unrecognised by other products.
3. The biggest issue is Media, especially if FH Link to Face/Detail frames are used, primary Images need identifying as such in the destination product, or the destination product does not support Media records only Local Media Objects.
   Without suitable conversion, such Media often do not migrate well to other products.
   The FH export caters for GEDCOM 5.5 and 5.5.1 Media formats but if the user does not know which one the destination product uses that does not help much and the other features often confuse things.
4. FH Place records and Lat/Longitude do not migrate to other products without some conversion.
5. FH Fact Witnesses only migrate to a handful of products and otherwise need conversion.
6. There is no attempt to cater for custom features or unsupported standard GEDCOM structures in other products, which often don't support Address or Age fields or certain standard Facts. Without suitable conversion, such data gets excluded.

I would not class any of the above as FH power-user features.

[Mark1834]

We’ll agree to politely disagree on that final assertion. One thing that’s becoming increasingly apparent to me as I get involved in other FH groups outside FHUG is that we are not representative of FH users in general, and most folk seem to use the product at a far more basic level than the relatively small number who post here.

Don’t get me wrong - one of the main reasons I use FH is its open structure and the knowledge that everything that I put in can be salvaged, even if CP packed up tomorrow. The plugin is an excellent facility for users who want that assurance that their work is still safe and portable without having to worry about the minutiae of how or having to work out their own conversions, but it can be a little intimidating at first sight. I’m happy to admit that I don’t understand all the options, and would have to experiment to see what worked best.

[ColeValleyGirl]

We’ll agree to politely disagree on that final assertion. One thing that’s becoming increasingly apparent to me as I get involved in other FH groups outside FHUG is that we are not representative of FH users in general, and most folk seem to use the product at a far more basic level than the relatively small number who post here

Hear hear! We are definitely not representative.

[Mark1834]

And it's the "typical users" (whoever they are) who pay the bills and keep CP viable, not us.

[peemik]

I really didn't intend to start a debate about the rights and wrongs of exporting.

As I have said previously I stuck with AQ because it was simple to use and although I have been doing Family History for 30 years I still only require that of genealogy software i.e. a safe place to put the most important thing, the data, a lot of the features of FH I'll never use. I don't want to start writing plugins to achieve things even though I have been a programmer longer than I've been a family historian.

Thanks to everyone for their replies and opinions.