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Viewing GEDCOM files

Viewing GEDCOM files

Posted: 5 Jan 2015 12:31PM GMT
Classification: Query
I have downloaded my family tree from here as a GEDCOM file but cannot get any of the viewers I download to open it. Any idea what I am doing wrong??

Re: Viewing GEDCOM files

Posted: 8 Jan 2015 12:54PM GMT
Classification: Query
I was hoping that someone from Ancestry would help me with this!!!!

Re: Viewing GEDCOM files

Posted: 8 Jan 2015 1:25PM GMT
Classification: Query
This is a peer to peer board. Ancestry does not monitor this board very often, if at all.

To read a GEDCOM you may want to see if you find a GEDCOM reader software by doing a Google search. Unfortunately Ancestry, FTM, and most genealogy programs do not export standard GEDCOM but a dielect of their own so some readers will not read all attributes correctly.

You must also be careful not to open the ged file in a word processor, open it Notepad or better in Notepad++ which is available on the Internet.

I could also look at a snippet of the GEDCOM to see if it has any issues but this is not the best option since any number of hidden issues could be anywhere in the file and it would not reveal itself in a simple display on this board.

Re: Viewing GEDCOM files

Posted: 8 Jan 2015 1:58PM GMT
Classification: Query
Thank you for the info. i have so far downloaded 4 different GEDCOm readers but so far they will not even open my tree file. Just seems so frustrating that we build our trees but cannot then download them.

Re: Viewing GEDCOM files

Posted: 8 Jan 2015 7:21PM GMT
Classification: Query
I don't use ancestry.com so I can't help you with why you can't open a GEDCOM generated by it.

Do you get an error message? What readers did you try?

Try downloading a free copy of Legacy and see if it will read the file. If not then you probably have not created a valid file. Open it with NotePad and make sure the file has a HEAD tag at the beginning and TRLR tag at the very end.
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