If you do this thru Gedcom, yes you will lose some items. You need to check the options you have for the Gedcom also. I know you have some control over the items kept, but you do lose some items. But if you archive the file, and save it to a disc, which is what I do every month or two, and then keep the disc separate as a back up, it will save every key stroke. The reason I do this is if my hard drive goes down, you could lose all of my file. And if you have been doing this for 10-15 years and keep notes, etc... that can't be replaced then you would have good reason not to lose the entire file and start over again. Any way then go to the new program and back up file from old archive file, bingo, all your data, including notes. Usually if you have your old program, and files, and install a new version of FTM it will bring forward all the data. Unless you are going from another program to FTM then the Gedcom problem probably exists. Dan