On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 20:55:46 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote: > Some people seem to only keep their family history information on such > sites, and when I ask if we can share and compare information, they > offer access to their online tree, where there seems to be no > possibility of sharing GEDCOM files. Is it really as bad as it looks, or > am I missing something important? Ancestry.com has the ability to import and/or export via gedcom files, but most people don't seem to realize that. HOWEVER, having said that, the gedcom you get from Ancestry.com when you do an export is NOT clean. By that, I mean it has a lot of non-standard junk in it that either gets thrown away or ends up polluting your notes when you import it into a "real" genealogy program. But gedcoms CAN be done on Ancestry.com. Todd

On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:23:47 +0000 (UTC), Todd Carnes <[email protected]> wrote: >On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 20:55:46 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote: > >> Some people seem to only keep their family history information on such >> sites, and when I ask if we can share and compare information, they >> offer access to their online tree, where there seems to be no >> possibility of sharing GEDCOM files. Is it really as bad as it looks, or >> am I missing something important? > >Ancestry.com has the ability to import and/or export via gedcom files, >but most people don't seem to realize that. > >HOWEVER, having said that, the gedcom you get from Ancestry.com when you >do an export is NOT clean. By that, I mean it has a lot of non-standard >junk in it that either gets thrown away or ends up polluting your notes >when you import it into a "real" genealogy program. > >But gedcoms CAN be done on Ancestry.com. Do you know how? Would you care to share your knowledge? It seems that, for the moment, Mundia lets you look at trees on Ancestry.com, but the experience is a bit like feeling your way in the dark. You enter the name of a person and it shows you a list of trees, with nothing further to identify them. If you want to compare one with another, you can not find the first one again, or if you do find it by chance, you have no idea that you've found it. You can't even find whether the person who compiled the tree is actually related to the family you are looking for, or whether that have compiled the material from their own research, or just copied and pasted from someone else's tree. You see this list of trees that all have things like "10472 individuals" - so which one is the original and which ones are the copies? There is no point in trying to make contact with the "owner" of a tree that is apparently exactly the same as five or six others if they have just copied the whole thing and havent done the research. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk