Genealogy Chat

See below

Following on from the excellent thread ‘Splitting & Merging Files using Family Tree Maker’ by Ron O’Neil . If you wish to pass on information for a group of ancestors from your Family Tree Maker to somebody though a pm on this site rather than sending a gedcom file by email then this is how it can be done. This method will bring up a word version which you can edit and then send via pm to one of your contacts through GR or send by email if you wish to someone who is unable to receive gedcoms. In Family Tree Maker go to the family page of the person you have selected. Go to Reports and select Genealogy Reports. Choose the number of generations you need from the options box at top RHS. From another options box choose whether or not you want individual notes included. Go to file, top LHS and select Export Genealogy Report and then to Word Processor. In the pop up box that appears go to Save In and select from the drop down box where you want to save it. In File Name at the bottom write ‘’Descendents of Joe Bloggs’ or whatever. Go to Save as Type and select from the drop down box Formatted Text. Press Save and close the FTM. Find your file from My Documents or wherever you filed it and then you can edit it to your hearts content. Copy and paste this to your contacts. If you are unable to copy and paste mail me and I’ll send you a method to do it. The only problem I have had is that GR cannot be formatted. If you have your sources superscripted it will look like this : GEORGE5 Bloggs, (GEORGE4, SAMUEL3, SAMUEL2, RICHARD1)44,45,46,47 , was born 06 Jul 18** in Anywhere, Suffolk, UK48,49 The source numbers are rather large to say the least and it can look a bit of a mess unless you understand why. Hope this helps someone,

I shall have to print these off! Thanks Kat

Kat, Thanks for this, I shall also print it off if you dont mind Debs x

Thanks Kat. Will keep this.

You're welcome, feeling in a helpful mood today and it really is useful

Legacy, and I'm sure FTM too, has a narrative form of report. The printout looks vaguely like English (!) and it is definitely preferable to sending a gedcom - and revealing your email address - if you are only passing on details about a couple of generations. you include sources if you want, but the opportunity to edit must be the best advantage. Eg: Descendants of James C James C [46] was buried on 26 Mar 1830 in Y, Hants. General Notes: BURIED, AGED 76, THEREFORE BORN CIRCA 1754 James married Sarah P [47] [MRIN: 16] on 14 Feb 1777 in Z. Sarah was buried on 23 Jan 1851 in Y, Hants. They had six children: William, Daniel, Betty, Joseph, James, and Olive. William C [48] was christened on 19 Dec 1778 in K, Hants and was buried on 28 Dec 1779 in Y. Daniel C [49] was born on 12 Aug 1782 in Y, Hants and died on 30 Oct 1853 in X, Hants at age 71. [Identities hidden to protect any errors in my research!]

It's being able to copy and paste edited details from your FTM onto GR when replying to your contacts without having to open your tree to anybody, which seems to have been a concern of a lot of people on this site just lately. It means that you can send as few or whole reams of info without having to laboriously type it out. It is quite possible that you can export from other formats like legacy too in this way as long as you can export it using 'Word Processor' and saving the file as Formatted Text. Kat

Hi Kat I was hoping this would work but it looks as if my FTW 9 is too old. I can pull up the report I want , but when I go to 'save as' the only options I have are FTW or .GED. There is no 'formatted text' option. What I have had to do previously is print off the report I want and scan and save to my docs, which is very time consuming and frankly a pain in the b... Any suggestions please, Sylvia

Hi Sylvia Did you do this part?: <Go to file, top LHS and select Export Genealogy Report and then to Word Processor.> If you brought up 'word processor' then I don't understand how you didn't get 'Formatted text' in the save as type box. Are you sure you did the first part right?? Kat

Hi Kat ooops Sorry my mistake I was trying to do the Family Group sheet, which would have saved a lot of editing....!! A pity really that you can't do it on the group sheet as that is the best (I find) record to send when a basic list is all that's needed Thanks for that anyway will save a lot of time. Sylvia

bumping cos I'm feeling helpful but a bit bored Kat