Last year I received a large FTM-generated GEDCOM with multimedia links, and a DVD with all the photos and documents. The GEDCOM says “Family Tree Maker (21.0.0.723)”. When I imported the GEDCOM into Legacy 7.5, I was able to successfully link the media files. There was one problem, however. The FTM export encodes the preferred picture for an individual in a different way than Legacy does. The Legacy import did not handle this (presumably non-standard) encoding well, causing each individual to have an extra (unlinked) mystery picture as the preferred picture. Thus, nothing was displayed in Family View, but the media gallery for the individual showed all of the linked pictures/documents. I had to delete the mystery picture and manually select the preferred picture.
I reported the issue to Millennia. Recently, I had the opportunity to try the same GEDCOM with Legacy 8. Unfortunately, this time none of the pictures were linked at all. In fact, the references to the media all had missing filenames! I have only recently reported this. There is no workaround/repair possible, other than manually linking every file. With Legacy 7.5, I had a few other import issues not related to media, but caused by non-standard GEDCOM and/or non-standard FTM practices. These are essentially fixed in Legacy 8, with some minor cosmetic glitches still remaining. And when I say ‘fixed’, I mean that Legacy programmers have kindly implemented special handling to work around bad FTM export coding. I appreciate this effort. One big headache that is out of Legacy’s control is that every FTM-generated GEDCOM that I have received contains bad practices: non-dates in date fields, non-locations in location fields, multiple variants of the same location, middle initials missing the period, events that don’t read properly, etc. Ward From: William Boswell Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2014 9:56 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] importing from Ancestry The owner of the online tree only has the options of downloading to FTM or a GEDCOM file. The GEDCOM you can download directly from within your tree. If you want all the images, you'll have to purchase a copy of FTM for that. Once the images are saved locally to your hard drive you should be able to export to a GEDCOM and save the image paths. I know this works from Legacy to FTM because I do it all the time, but from FTM to Legacy I'm not sure. I'll have to try it sometime. I only use FTM to find records at Ancestry because Legacy is a better program. Bill Boswell From: Ann Brown [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2014 10:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] importing from Ancestry thank you both for that information. I was just about to download all that info. Yuck... I wish I could use this program On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 10:24 AM, Ron Bernier <[email protected]> wrote: Ann, Other than Family Tree Maker (owned by Ancestry.com) you wont find a program that can accept a download from Ancestry. Regardless of which program you use, you will only be able to import a GEDCOM from Ancestry. Ron Bernier Woonsocket, RI On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 10:02 AM, Ann Brown <[email protected]> wrote: Good Morning everyone, I am brand new to Legacy, having just downloaded the free version to practice with. I have been using RootsMagic for 10 years. I want to import my Ancestry tree to my computer with the photos and copies of the documents that I have attached to my people. Is that possible with Legacy? I have read most of the info but nothing is mentioned about Ancestry ...just FamilyTree and familysearch. Can someone give some advice. I am in the market for a product that will do this and since Legacy is #1 I would hope it would do this. I have also thought about another product as well. Thanking you in advance. Ann Brown Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
