General Chat

I have been trying to import Gedcom files into Genes Reunited without success. The files are being exported from both Family Tree Maker 2017 and Ancestry.co.uk. In each case I ensure the file is in the correct .gedcom format, but every time I get an error message saying "The file could not be loaded: Cannot parse gedcom file. The file is not in the correct format.message". I have no idea what else to try. Has anyone else experienced anything similar, or could offer some advice on how to proceed ? Thank you.

When Phil Moir left most of GR know how left with him.
There are all sorts of peculiarities in GR handling of GEDCOM files such that most experienced people choose another way of storing their tree.
However if you must try this:

https://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/wiki/doku.php?id=glossary:genes_reunited

I have had a similar problem but have not managed to fix it.

The error I have is

"The file could not be loaded: Cannot parse gedcom file. The file is not in the correct format.message. The first line in error is line 80598 Marriage place: Islington St Mary, England "

In my case I have about 4000 people and the Ged file is about 250000 lines. I have Ancestry and FTM2017 linked but there is, according to FTM, no one using the place Islington St Mary, England but several that use Islington St Mary, Milddlesex, England

There is a software program GED Validator which I have used which confirms that the error is in the GED produced by Ancestry. From that I deduce that \I have some sort of minor corruption in the Ancestry/FTM data.

I must add that although GR is unable to import the faulty GEDCOM, Roots Magic is able to handle it.

The GEDCOM Validator gives hundreds of warnings the majority of which are about superfluous spaces in the file.

Although there doesn't seem to be any way of correcting the Ancestry tree corruption, the linked FTM version does produce a GEDCOM that GR accepts. Compact File in FTM was done before the GEDCOM was produced..