User talk:Sailfin

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If you need any help, I will be glad to answer your questions. Just click on my signature link below and then click on the “Leave a message” link under my name in the upper left corner of my profile page. Thanks for participating and see you around! Debbie Freeman --DFree 11:32, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

Your recent gedcom upload [27 June 2011]

Hi,

I'm sorry to report that we're unable to process your recent gedcom upload. The gedcom file has problems that make our importer unable to handle it. I'm going to assume that you know how to read a gedcom file. Around line 4568 the file has a BIRT tag nested inside another BIRT tag nested inside another BIRT tag. There are some other nested BIRT tags around lines 600-670. There are dozens of nested BIRT, DEAT, etc. tags in the file. These tags aren't supposed to be nested, and our importer doesn't know what to do with them. You'll need to fix these problems before we can import the file.--Dallan 02:02, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

The gedcom you uploaded this morning appears to have the same problems as the one you uploaded last night. You must correct these problems before uploading again. Try importing your gedcom into RootsMagic or Legacy, then export a gedcom and upload that one. They'll hopefully be able to correct the problems that Lifelines is creating.--Dallan 09:47, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

Immediately after I submitted the second file, I realised I'd selected the wrong file (the one I hadn't modified). Because it takes a while to complete, it would be good to have the ability to cancel a GEDCOM Analyze part way through (I couldn't find any way to cancel the import).

In terms of the original problem of nested BIRT and DEAT tags (i.e. invalid GEDCOM 5.5), why not just ignore them for the purposes of importing and flag them as errors at the review stage? Then administrators don't need to be involved unless the user is unsure of what the problem is and needs to ask a question.--Sailfin 17:26, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

It does (and did) ignore the nested BIRT/DEAT tags, but it then proceeds by trying to attach the nested tags to the higher-level tag. In a few cases in your gedcom this caused it to get confused. I could fix this, but having the gedcom uploader deal with all the malformed gedcoms that come in has made it a pain to maintain (I have sympathy for browsers trying to deal with malformed html). Since yours is the first I've ever seen with nested BIRT/DEAT tags, I've chosen not to fix it for now.--Dallan 18:03, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

Thanks for the response. I understand your pain!! By way of explanation, I had been using the nested BIRT/DEAT tags for alternative birth/death information, under my most reliable (most likely to be true) data. I've now stopped that practice and just have multiple level 1 BIRT/DEAT tags if needed. GEDCOM is good for recording conclusions, but not for the ongoing research.--Sailfin 18:21, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

That's much better, thanks. Multiple BIRT/DEAT events, with the most-likely listed first, works very well when you import a gedcom. And I agree gedcom is really bad for recording ongoing research (sigh).--Dallan 20:00, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

Just an FYI: another issue in your gedcom is you had SOUR tags nested under dates, places, and maybe other SOUR tags. I don't remember whether this is part of the standard, but I haven't come across it before. Anyway, I moved all of the SOUR tags at levels 3 and 4 up to level 2 (about a dozen of them), and your gedcom imported.--Dallan 11:51, 24 June 2011 (EDT)

Names and Places can have their own Source records according to the GEDCOM 5.5. standard. Not dates though.--sailfin 00:16, 27 June 2011 (EDT)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [24 June 2011]

You're not done yet!

WeRelate is different from most family tree websites. By contributing to WeRelate you are helping to create Pando for genealogy, a free, unified family tree that combines the best information from all contributors.

Now that you have uploaded gedn_4_generations_back.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

Note: if your gedcom contains many errors or multiple families, we’d ask that you resolve and correct the errors, delete this gedcom and re-submit it without the errors before merging it with families already on WeRelate. If the gedcom is very large, we’d suggest breaking it up into separate files (or families) and importing them one at a time, which makes the review and correction process easier.

Click here to review your GEDCOM

Once you have finished your review and marked your GEDCOM Ready to import, one of our administrators will review your GEDCOM and finalize the import. This usually happens within 24 hours. You will receive a message here when the pages have been created.

--WeRelate agent 11:44, 24 June 2011 (EDT)

gedn_4_generations_back.ged Imported Successfully [25 June 2011]

The pages from your GEDCOM have been generated successfully. You may now:

• launch the Family Tree Explorer to navigate your tree
• view your network -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out to which other WeRelate users you are related.
• view related pages not in your tree -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out which people you are now related to that you can add to your tree (takes awhile to display for large trees).
• view a searchable list of the pages in your tree -- The searchable list will be available about an hour after your tree has been imported.

For questions or problems, leave a message for Dallan or send an email to dallan@WeRelate.org.

--WeRelate agent 19:27, 25 June 2011 (EDT)

GEDCOM Export Ready [26 June 2011]

The GEDCOM for tree Martin_Subset is ready to download. Click here.