Genealogy Chat

I want to publish my tree online. I can export a GEDCOM and import it into the site, no problem. But there's stuff in the 'Notes' that I must not publish. Can you recommend a program to process the file, removing all notes and hiding or removing details of non-dead people? TIA -- Dave.

Don't know if there is such a programme. What I do is not put onto the gedcom file that I am going to export any living people, it takes a bit longer to do as you have to choose the people you want to export. Then before exporting I look at the file in FTM and delete any private notes. Jennifer

I would have thought all family tree programs do that. Which one are you using at the moment?

I'm using FTM (2007 version). What you have to do is 1) Privatise the file # 2) Export it to GEDCOM 3) Un-Privatise the file and close it 3) Import the GEDCOM to a new FTM file, dropping Notes tags. 4) Export it to GEDCOM # Privatise leaves all names and that means peoples' mother's maiden name is visible for all to see. I was rather hoping that someone knows of a program to simplify the process by editing a 'normal' GEDCOM. -- Dave.

Yes, I recently got FTM, and I was disappointed to find that removing notes is such a roundabout process.

You can remove notes and hide living people quite simply during the export process with PAF.

Cant you choose who you want to go in the gedcom on ftm by bringing up the list of people and removing any you dont want to add?

As already stated there are a few options within FTM to privatise a file or export a gedcom without the notes but if you really want to use another program to edit out any details you can open a gedcom in any Word Processing program, be sure to delete the whole line of text though this includes the little bit of text just before the actual note or date that you are going to delete, this little bit of text tells the program what it is and where to put it. Ron www.genealogyprinters*com

it should be an easy process using the gedcom format

I use Roots Magic and in the export box you can privitise living people and also tick what you want to include or exclude. L

Thanks all for your input.
FTM is good for some things, PAF is good for others and RootsM is good for different things. It's not practical to keep changing from one to the other, depending on what you want to do.

The edit it manually idea might be good for a small tree, but there are 10,147 individuals and 2,282 marriages in the tree I'm working on.

Oh, well it looks like the 5-step process will have to be the way to do it.
--
Dave.

You mentioning the way that different programs handle things in a different way is just one of the reasons that there is no "best program" they all have their own little quirks and sometimes it pays to use more than one program to achieve what ever you want to do.

Ron
www.genealogyprinters*com

I agree with Titus - PAF has a tick option for whether or not to import notes - so easy - and free!