Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and
Diane M. Snow of the England London Mission, Hyde Park Family History Centre (
snowd@math.byu.edu , dms34@juno.com)
These notes with active Internet links are posted on
the Utah Valley PAF Users Group website http://uvpafug.org under Class
Outlines , Don's Listings , and are linked on the Hyde Park
Family History Centre website http://www.hydeparkfhc.org under Events.
Many other class notes for family history are linked on both sites
also.
This class is to learn about finding and viewing GEDCOM files
with information about your ancestors.
WHAT ARE GEDCOM's?
GEDCOM (= GEnealogical Data COMmunications)
GEDCOM files are special forms of regular text files
used for transferring genealogy data
Can be read (and edited) with any word processor,
e.g. Notepad, Wordpad, OpenOffice, WordPerfect, Word
Can be copied, edited, printed, emailed
Allows transferring data between genealogy programs
without retyping the data
GEDCOM was developed by
LDS Church in about 1985 and is now universally used in genealogy
programs
Use GEDCOM
To merge two databases
To split your database, e.g. divide it into your's and your spouse's ancestral lines
To transfer some or all of your database to a
relative, friend, or to Pedigree Resource Files
GEDCOM format
Text file with numbers and tags in the left column like
0 IND
1 BIRT
2 DATE
Think of the numbers as indentations:
0 Individual's Name
1 -----Birth
2 ----------Birth Date
2 ----------Birth Place
1 -----Christening
2 ----------Christening Date
etc.
Search for ' "Erastus Snow" +gedcom ' or ' "Erastus
Snow" +ged ' -- capital letters don't make a difference in Google
Putting the name in quotation marks tells Google to search for
exactly that name -- without the quote marks it searches for
all the terms on the same page, but not necessarily together
The plus sign, +, means you require the term GEDCOM
or ged to be nearby -- .ged is the extension on GEDCOM file names, e.g.
Pioneers.ged
Can also try varying the name, e.g. "Erastus B.
Snow" or "Snow, Erastus"
Many GEDCOM files are available, both online and offline
GEDCOM file means you already have the
data in electronic form so you can check it, find
sources and notes, and verify it more easily
All such GEDCOM's are compiled, i.e. secondary
sources, not primary sources, but give you information to verify
VERIFY WHAT YOU FIND BEFORE YOU ACCEPT IT -- Some
GEDCOM's are more accurate than others, but it's always easier to verify data than to find it in the first place.
With several GEDCOM's in a folder on your computer you can use GENViewer to search through all of them at once for criteria you specify
ASSIGNMENT
Find a GEDCOM file of one of your ancestors from one
of the databases in FamilySearch, either the Internet version or the DOS
version.
Do a Google search and find an online GEDCOM with one
of your ancestors in it. Download and examine it.
Try RootsWeb to see if there are any GEDCOM's on it
with any of your ancestors. If you can, download part or all of it and examine
it.