William Peter Bennett, III - Gedcom Sources

Cynthia Curtis, A183502, US7875087, I've seen several posts like this from you, so I wanted to suggest a better way to save GEDCOM info.

If you create threads like this, it breaks the links and also doesn't export with the profile. If you want to save the info (and you should), the better way is:

1) Open the profile in profile-view and click to edit the "About."

2) Copy the text from there, then close the editing window.

3) Cluck the "Sources" tab, then "Add Source," then "Add a New Document," then "Create a New Document."

4) Name the file "GEDCOM Sources" -- or, preferably, "[Name of GEDCOM uploader] GEDCOM Sources."

5) Paste the info you copied from the "About" and save it.

You can see how I've done this at https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000114218222858

Remember that you can't just copy the GEDCOM info from the profile; you need to do it from the editing view, otherwise the links will break.

Finally, you should never delete SmartCopy references, so I've re-added those to the profile.

I should add that you can also, of course, simply reformat the GEDCOM sources into something readable. It usually just involves highlighting and deleting the unnecessary and redundant info. It looks intimidating, but once you've done it a few times, it takes less than a minute.

The info from this profile, which I'll re-add to the profile, is nicely tidied this way:

==Sources==

* Family Data Collection - Births Edmund West, comp. Ancestry.com Operations Inc
* Family Data Collection - Individual Records Edmund West, comp. Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.
** Birth year: 1703; Birth city: Christ Church Parish; Birth state: VA 1,4725::198763
* Ancestry Family Trees Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.
** http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=40860970&amp...

(Notice how the Ancestry link does not display correctly above. You can visit the profile and open the "About" editor to see what that link should actually look like.)

They are messy and time consuming and every time I see one, I wonder how BAD was the tree it came from.
Someone should be assigned to work on the post gedcoms, in my opinion.

Thank you for the tip Private User

>>> "...every time I see one, I wonder how BAD was the tree it came from."

It's usually the opposite, thankfully. Lots of GEDCOM notes means the originating tree had lots of citations.

Good to know Private User!
I have said before that I like seeing new ones because it can mean new connections especially if they are able to connect their DNA to their profile.
It is just very messy looking and I have asked for help with several that come up with multiple children of different generations and resulting in twenty children...
I have been a Pro user for two years and when the membership lapsed before I renewed, I became so much more aware of how difficult it is to clean up one's own area of the tree when they cannot see a Duplicate suggestion and they cannot merge...many issues. So with the return of the gedcom upload, it really feels like more help should come along with it. I was not here when it was used at first and I do not know why it went away. I have thought it returned because so many people have a large tree that they do not wish to have to replicate, again, here.
I see that you neatened up this profile the Discussion was started on and I do thank you so very much--on behalf of myself and the 20 other managers.
I am hoping to be able to figure it out (making a document) -- that and a few other things such as the Smart Copy way of importing a family rather than having to add an individual at a time.
Thank you again.