From: ttw@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (thomas.t.wetmore..iv)
Subject: Re: Royalty GedCom and GEDCOM program
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:32:09 GMT

Steven,

	I can appreciate your frustration.  Most genalogical software
systems available today have GEDCOM import and export features.
GEDCOM is a loosely interpreted standard of the LDS church that
defines file formats for interchanging genealogical data between
computer systems.  Whenever possible you should try to use this
mechanism for transferring your data between systems.

	When you contemplate getting new software it is important to
find out whether it has these features.  There is a big fly in the
GEDCOM ointment however, since different software systems export
GEDCOM in their own idiosynctratic ways.  When a system imports
GEDCOM, it must take the info in the file and then use it to fill out
its own internal database record format with that information.  Any
information in the file that doesn't fit (or doesn't understand, due
to the idiosyncracies of the program that generated it) is lost.
When a system exports GEDCOM, it can obviously export (at the most) the
data in its database records (I say "at the most" because some very
well-liked programs, including BK, do not put everything from the
database record into the exported GEDCOM, which to some [including me]
is a major flaw).  GEDCOM import and export is the best that we have,
however, unless you are a wizard programmer and can write your own data
translation programs.

	A couple quick suggestions.

	1. See if your original program has a later version that has
the GEDCOM export feature; many authors of the older programs have
retrofitted this feature onto their later versions.
	2. If answer to 1. is no, see if you can dump your old
database into some easily machine readable form, and then find a
programmer who owes you a big favor, and get her to write a program
that translates this data to the GEDCOM format expected by your new
program (I've done exactly this for a number of friends over the past
years).
	3. If the answer to 1. is yes, you will still have to check
that the GEDCOM exported by your old system can be handled properly by
the GEDCOM import of your new system.  This can usually be done by
some simple experimentation (import into the new program, then export
from the new program, and see how badly things have been messed up).
Then go get the programmer (from number 2. above) and get her to write
a GEDCOM to GEDCOM translation program that preprocesses the data
exported from your old system, into the GEDCOM expected by your new
one.
	4. Find a big rock; crawl behind it; cry a lot; return to your
computer; enter data for hours and hours and hours.

	Good luck.  
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Thomas T. Wetmore IV, AT&T Bell Laboratories, (508)960-6015 (work)
ttw@petrel.att.com                            (508)465-3220 (home)
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WETMORE (1660-1992:Ct>World)    WHITMORE (1300-1660:Eng>Ct)
HANCOCK (1800-1950:Md>Ct)       BROWN    (1780-1900:Vt>Wi)
KANEEN  (1700-1900:IoM>Ct)      TRASK    (1580-1820:Eng>NS)
ESCOTT  (1700-1900:Nfld)        HARVEY   (1700-1900:Scot>Ire>NS>Wi)
EDMUNDS (1700-1835:Wales)       KISSACK  (1600-1850:IoM)
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"Beware of any enterprise that requires new clothes." -- h.d.thoreau
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Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU