Why are middle names not exported, when exporting a gedcom of a family tree?

Question

I tried to  export my direct ancestors, and all I got was their 1st and last names, and vital information. Where are their middle names?

Comments

Hi Tammy. This reply won't give comfort, sorry, but may help to explain what's happening. Middle names should be present in the exported GEDCOM file, in a 2 _MIDN field. You can see them if you can open the file in a text editor like Notes (be careful not to change it).

Because this field is nonstandard, most genealogy software programs cannot see it. So the middle names are there, but hidden and not much use, unless your software has a way of handling special extra fields.

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If your gedcom import creates an error file, it will tell you what gedcom lines are not imported.

It is possible to edit a gedcom and effectively merge the middle names with the given name field. See Jim Richardson’s reply and Dave Sellars reply.

I think the middle name field, if present, will appear immediately after the given name field. If you look at the file you should be able to verify this. In theory, you could add the middle name to to given name field, and then remove the line with the middle name field.

When you save the file, the text editor will likely add the txt extension. If it does, change it to the ged extension or your software will not recognize the file.

A word of caution, if you inadvertently change other things you may cause fatal errors in the gedcom. Keep a copy of the original, unedited gedcom just in case.

Answer 1

I believe the answer is that WT does not follow the gedcom standard. There is no middle name in a gedcom.

To make it work, move the middle name to the First Name field. Then rerun the gedcom.