Hi Bob
I've created GEDCOM-files from CSV-files using the Gedcom.pm modules.
The basic idea was something like this (from memory):
my $ged = Gedcom->new;
while(<CSVFILE>) {
my ($name, $birth, $death, $etc) = split(",");
my $person = $ged->add_individual;
$person->name($name);
#etc
}
$ged->write("file.ged");
I can send the code I used when I get home from work, I believe I
still have it. It was for a set of transcribed censuses, so there was
a lot of logic to get people into the right families (which didn't
work out right in edge cases). For reasonably uniform data it should
be entirely doable with a short script though.
Regards,
Mikkel
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Bob McConnell <rmcco...@lightlink.com> wrote:
> Yes, I realize it is a Perl module. That doesn't bother me as I have been
> writing applications with Perl for more than ten years. I just wanted to
> make sure it was possible to get where I want to go. The external
> documentation is not at all clear on its capabilities. They talk about
> reading GED files but not creating or writing them.
>
> The TSV files were created by copy and paste from a related family report on
> familytreemaker.genealogy.com. They are consistent across the set, but not
> specific to any application I am familiar with. I kept the labels in the
> header line on each page when I copied them. Just converting them into a GED
> file would be a good first step. This is where I was interested in using
> Gedcom. I also need to include references to that source and the distant
> cousin that posted the data there.
>
> The GED file I have came from one of my sisters. Years ago she was playing
> with Family Tree Maker and had access to documents our paternal grandfather
> had collected while tracing his lineage back to Ireland. It contains all of
> my siblings, many of our cousins on that side, and most of our children, but
> only a few of our grandchildren. I need to grow that in several different
> directions. But I am trying to avoid having to add those several hundred
> records by hand when they are already available online.
>
> I recently installed Gramps 3.1.2 to manipulate the GED file. I have some
> problems with it as it is very different from version 2.0.12 which I used
> several years back, but it is still the best application I have tried so
> far. Part of my problem is that I still don't know my way around it very
> well, so some operations seem awkward yet. I don't know if it can merge
> multiple files, nor how good it will be at pruning them. I simply haven't
> gotten that far with it.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Bob McConnell
> N2SPP
>
> Michael Ionescu|Karlsruhe wrote:
>>
>> Bob,
>>
>> first off, Gedcom is a perl programming library, not a finished program.
>> You have to create a perl program to make use of it.
>>
>> You might want to consider going at the problem differently: If there is
>> a program that can convert your TSV files to GED, you'll only be faced
>> with the quite common task of merging two trees instead of creating a
>> specialized program. If there isn't, you can do it with Gedcom -
>> depending on whether your TSV files are internally consistent. But it
>> will take quite a bit of perl programming.
>>
>> Once you have the two GED files, use some standard tool to perform the
>> merge. This is a task virtually all genealogists are faced with at some
>> point, so there is ample discussion of the subject to be found on the net.
>>
>> For pruning you will probably also find a standard program to do the
>> job, depending on what you mean by immediate family. That's much more
>> efficient than programming your own pruning tool using perl/Gedcom.
