Genealogy Chat

Maplin usually have the older version of FTM for about £ 18 and Tesco sometimes. A lot of people strongly dislike the latest version which has a lot of changes. Its chief use is to create off line versions of Ancestry but it will work well enough with a GEDCOM from anywhere inc Gru. You can have as many trees or tree versions as you like.

GEDCOM (latest version 5.5) is a data exchange tool developed by and for LDS. It has endless issues when used for data interchange as most programs / sites have a twist on the "standard" and that includes Gru. Dates are especially liable to get pickled.

Bear in mind that if you save a tree to GEFCOM from Gru notes, links and photos will be lost.

The usual method for data interchange (I.T. generally, not genealogy) since about 2000 has been to use XML. At the recent RootsWeb conference in the USA Feb 2012 (sponsored by BrightSold, Phil Moire an attendee) a major issue was supposed to be the release of GEDCOM 6 with XML support. However the issue collapsed as LDS took the ball away and refused to collaborate with others on an equal basis. So we are stuck with 5.5. Microsoft's rather fun family tree product (free) will import GEDCOM but exports to XML. This XML is easy to import into Excel or Access or Libre Office.

The best free program is GRAMPS though you have to put in a bit of effort. It has an excellent user community. Free PAF is a total waste of time but registration is cheap enough.

No Knowledge of Gedcom at all so this will help me learn how to do it :-D

Thankyou

For Phyll and Ann.

Having read some of this thread please would someone help me?

I have been helping a friend to learn about her family. So far we have about 600 people.
This is on An...try and now she wants me to down load it and give it to her to take to England.
My dilemma is- noing a simple way to do this.
Asking for help re cost of paper, ink etc
I offered to give her my details re the other site so she could see it with her son but the answer was simply NO.

What should I do next, which is the easiest system to use?

Thank you

Bridget

I think you would do better to ask this question on a separate thread, SpanishEyes.

Is she moving permanently or does she just want hardcopy to show people in England?

If moving permanently then can't she access it from Ancestry in UK? If it is on your account then you can make her a guest and she can access i.

OK rereading your post it looks like she needs to take hardcopy, presumably her son has no computer access. In that case I am not sure what can be done.

One possibility is to get FTM2012 which will be able to download the Ancestry Tree entirely. You can then select publishing options for the printouts required.