FINDING GEDCOM'S CONTAINING YOUR ANCESTORS
©2008 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
This page was last updated 2008-08-12.
Return to the Hyde Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO CLASS
- Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and Diane M. Snow of the England London Mission, London Family History Centre (snowd@math.byu.edu , dms34@juno.com)
- These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website http://uvtagg.org under Class Outlines , Don's Listings , and are linked on the London Family History Centre website http://www.hydeparkfhc.org under Events . Many other class notes for family history are linked at 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
- GEDCOM files has an extension .ged, e.g. Miller.ged
- Since they are text files, they can be read with any word processor, e.g. Notepad, Wordpad, OpenOffice, WordPerfect, Word
- Can be copied, edited, printed, and emailed
- Allow 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 for the following purposes:
- To merge two databases
- To split a database, e.g. divide it into yours 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 is a text file with numbers and tags in the left column as follows
0 IND
1 BIRT
2 DATE
- Think of it as indentations so the file is in outline form:
0 Individual's Name (Indent 0 spaces)
1 -----Birth (Indent 5 spaces)
2 ----------Birth Date (Indent 10 spaces)
2 ----------Birth Place (Indent 10 spaces)
1 -----Christening (Indent 5 spaces)
2 ----------Christening Date (Indent 10 spaces)
etc.
- For a more complete description see http://genealogy.about.com/library/weekly/aa110100a.htm
SOURCES OF GEDCOM's
- FamilySearch -- two versions of FamilySearch: (1) DOS version (only in FHC's); and (2) Internet version (at http://www.familysearch.org )
- Some data files with the same titles are different versions on each, e.g. Ancestral File on Internet FS is only a subset of same file on DOS FS
- Can download in GEDCOM format from both
- Databases in FS
- IGI -- International Genealogical Index -- online version is more up-to-date and much larger than DOS version
- Censuses -- 1880 US, 1881 UK, and 1901 Canadian
- GEDCOM's from each include source data without you having to type it in
- Many other census indexes on FamilySearch now
under Record Search Pilot (on Search Records tab), but you can't
download GEDCOM's from them
- Vital Records Indexes, e.g. Scandinavia Vital Records Index
- VRI's consist of extracted (indexed) data from microfilms and much is not in the IGI
- Downloading GEDCOM's gives the data and source (film numbers)
- Note: other Vital Records Indexes are
available in CD format and on servers in some FHC's, e.g., the British
Vital Records Index, 2nd Edition, is available at the London FHC
- Pedigree Resource File (PRF)
- Consists of GEDCOM's submitted by individuals worldwide, so you can download the GEDCOM's of interest
- Online version is only the index, not the PRF sources and notes
- Latest CD/DVD's of the PRF are DVD's 138 and 139 (Aug 2008)
- Some FHC's have the complete set of PRF CD's and DVD's available for patrons
- See more details in my notes about Ancestral File and PRF
- Ancestral File (AF) -- can download GEDCOM's from both versions
- FHC version includes many more individuals and data than online version due to privacy laws
- See more details in my notes about
Ancestral File and PRF
- US Social Security Death Index (SSDI) -- can download GEDCOM's from each version -- online version is more up-to-date
- US Military Death Index (MDI) -- only in some FHC's
- US Military deaths from Korean and Viet Nam wars only
- Includes more info than SSDI, e.g. service
number, religion, and more
- Scottish Church Records -- only in DOS FHC version, so only available in some FHC's
- 10 million extracted (indexed) church records from Scotland before Civil Registration
- Some are in IGI, but not all
- Ancestry -- http://www.ancestryinstitution.com
- GEDCOM's posted by individuals are located in the Family Trees section
- After a search you see all the GEDCOM's containing
your ancestor and you can download part or all of the GEDCOM, depending on what the owner has set
- Most family trees on Ancestry are on RootsWeb and
vice versa -- difference is that Ancestry has different format and search
tools, but data is the same
- RootsWeb -- http://rootsweb.com
- The largest and oldest free FH website on the Internet -- now hosted by Ancestry.com, but is still free for everyone
- GEDCOM's posted by individuals are located in Family Trees (WorldConnect)
- After a search you see all the GEDCOM's
containing your ancestor and you can download part of all of the GEDCOM, depending on what the owner has set
- Can upload your data in GEDCOM and allow public to see just the parts you decide, or even none of it, if you want
- Good place to use for a backup of your genealogy by uploading GEDCOM with all notes and sources
- For contributing your FH info somewhere see Gerhard Ruf's notes on Where Should I Contribute My Data? on http://www.uvtagg.org under Class Outlines
- MyHeritage -- http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/myheritage-research.php
-- searches 1100 genealogy websites, including RootsWeb, GenCircles, and TribalPages
- Many other GEDCOM sites -- see, for example
FINDING GEDCOM'S USING SEARCH ENGINES
- Using Google searches
- Search for ' "Erastus Snow" +gedcom ' or ' "erastus
snow" +ged ' or ' "Erastus Snow" filetype:ged ' or ' /Snow/ filetype:ged '
or ' Snow "surname list" '
- Reasons
- Capital letters don't make a difference in Google
- Quotation marks tells Google to search for exactly that phrase -- otherwise you get pages with any or all of the search terms, but anywhere on page
- Plus sign, +, means you require that term to
be there -- a minus sign, -, means you require that term NOT to be there -
helps to eliminate incorrect hits
- Using slashes around surname sometimes helps since GEDCOM files
show the surname between slashes, so you get Snow as a surname and not
just as in 'snow and ice'
- filetype:ged says you require sites with GEDCOM format -- ged is the
extension on GEDCOM file names, e.g. Pioneers.ged
- Including the phrase ' "surname list" ' (in quotes) also helps since
most websites with GEDCOM's include a surname list
- Can also try varying the name phrase, e.g. "Erastus B. Snow" or "Snow, Erastus"
- Easy Genealogy Searches on Ancestor Search does some of these variations for you -- http://www.searchforancestors.com/google/searcher.html
- Free genealogy search for Google -- see http://www.genealogy-search-help.com/ --
helpful information
- Meta searchengines for genealogy
- Other search engines to try
GEDCOM VIEWERS AND EDITORS
- Can use the browser "Find On This Page" feature to search for your name in the GEDCOM showing from the Internet
- Can add a source or a note to every entry in the GEDCOM before you use it so you know where you got that data
- GENViewer -- http://mudcreeksoftware.com/
- A very fast and powerful genealogy database viewer (not an editor) for GEDCOM and other genealogy database files
- Does searches in GEDCOM's to examine, analyze,and sort the data in several ways that other programs cannot -- even searches through collections of GEDCOM's for specified criteria
- Very helpful for examining a GEDCOM without converting it into a PAF or other genealogy file
- Has several views -- General, Individual, Family, Pedigree, Descendants, List, Highlighted, Islands, Sources, Internet
- Prints several reports in formats not available in PAF or other programs
- Commercial program, but has a freeware "lite"
version and anyone can use the full version for 2 weeks; also has a free
version for FHC's
- Additional GEDCOM Tools
CONCLUSION
- Many GEDCOM files are available, both on- and offline
- GEDCOM file means you get the data in electronic form,
so you don't have to enter it into a genealogy program and can check it, find sources and notes, and verify it more easily
- GEDCOM's are compiled data, i.e. secondary sources,
not primary sources, but they give you information to verify and it's always easier to verify data than to find it in the first place -- VERIFY WHAT YOU HAVE FOUND BEFORE YOU ACCEPT IT
- GENViewer can
help you search through many GEDCOM files in a folder on your computer to find the 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.
Return to the Hyde Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page.