Any recommendations on WikiTree produced Gedcom files for use in GEDBAS?

Question

I would like to produce a gedcom file from WikiTree to upload to GEDBAS.  Because of more restriction due to laws on the GEDBAS side, even if I choose the "limit the privacy" option before producing a WikiTree gedcom file, I'm concerned.  I'm wondering if a) this is a bad idea b) I can edit out potential problem things of the WikiTree gedcom side and still use the edited file to upload to GEDBAS.  I'm totally a newbie when it comes to gedcom files.

Comments

WikiTree adds non-standard fields to its gedcom, this could be problematic. There are also some standard fields with WikiTree specific data that would not be of value in gedbas. These can be eliminated, see below on choosing fields for export from your desk top program.

The bio has lots of wiki markup and/or html coding. You should investigate how gedbas handles this.

I would suggest starting with a small, only a few generations, and import it into a desk top program so you can get a sense of the issues with a WikiTree gedcom.

From some, if not most, desk top programs you can choose what fields to export, and by doing so you could eliminate protectively problem areas.

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Thanks -- is there a particular recommendation for a desktop gedcom program you would recommend?  I see numerous ones available for download that are free?  I looked in the Google Play Store and there are several.

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There are a number of them. The costs aren’t too much, typically less that $40. A number of them have free trial or limited versions. These will not have all the features, but likely will include the gedcom import and export function.

They are more PC versions than Mac.

The program I use is RootsMagic 7, but version 8 is now out. A couple of others are Legacy and Ancestral Quest.

I believe you can try these out at the FHC, at least you used to be able to do so. The FHC I usually go to upgraded their computers toward the end of the pandemic shutdown and are a bit behind the eight ball in getting all the software reloaded, so none of the software is there.

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Okay - thanks for your suggestions!

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Am a bit curious why one would do this at all? Ahnenblatt has a free version, that is pretty ok for import/export

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Hi Florian - well, I have three major German grandparent and great grandparent family lines that came to the US as older adults.  I've actually found a few of their offspring in GEDBAS.  So my thought was to get just a skeleton family tree built with what I do know of their birth/death/names/locations -- nothing in-depth -- for just these families and for just a few generations, and then upload the gedcom there and see if it generates any connections.  I'm grasping, here... don't know how to get more info on the Germany side of things currently.

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Be aware that GEDBAS is like isolated family trees at ancestry, just without any matching algorithm.

Answer 1

Please let me add some general thoughts about uploading WikiTree data to Gedbas. Generally, I would be very careful doing that. Besides the technical GEDCOM issues, and also some potential privacy issues, please consider that in Gedbas you will appear as the author of the data you uploaded. And you may be contacted by other researchers asking for details, sources or additional information regarding the data that you have uploaded. In WikiTree, however, you are not handling just your data, it is a colaborative work, and the profiles that you export by GEDCOM may have been edited by other WikiTree users as well. How are you going to handle that? Will you then take the authorship of that part of the data as well? Wouldn't it be easier, if you collect your research results locally (with a genealogy program that operates locally on your computer) and then share your work products to WikiTree to complement the global tree and also to Gedbas to support researchers there. But the source of anything you publish or upload should always be your own research data, and not something that you have taken or exported from another web site.

I am a contributor to WikiTree and to Gedbas, so you can contact me if you need further assistance.

Sincerely, Jochen from Germany

Comments

Thank you Jochen - this answers part one of my question "I'm wondering if a) is this a bad idea?"  It's sounding more and more like the wrong way to dig deeper into my family roots.  I don't have and cannot afford an Ancestry account which I do know has access to some of the information I am looking for.  I think after this discussion, I've tossed out the whole idea of using a WikiTree gedcom -- I just needed to hear input from other more experienced researchers about this idea that seemed like a good one in the beginning!  :)

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If Ancestry has some of the resources you need, you can access it at a FHC. They have an institutional edition of the US, German, British, and perhaps other versions. Anything you find there you can download. What you cannot do from an institutional version is upload the document to your family tree; you can, of course, still site those documents. If you download the image to your computer, you should be able to upload that image as a picture in the gallery; I don’t know if you can attach to an individual as a force.

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Jochen

For a family I was working on recently I found an extensive family tree at GEDBAS, largely unsourced. I then went through all the data I was interested and was able to verify it with actual church records. This particular family was from Czechoslovakia, which has excellent resources.

Some years back I did the same for a family from Sicily whose family tree was at GENEANET. I was able to do basically the same.

The European family trees I have examined at these sources, though typically unsourced, in the end turned out more reliable than some American trees I have see at Ancestry. At Ancestry it is too easy to use another family tree as a source, and errors are readily propagated.

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Thank you - this is good information that I was not aware of.