Is it time to limit the size of ged.com files?

Question

I made a serious mistake on my first ged.com file.  It has 4,434 records.   I will be working on it for a long time.   Since that time I have uploaded two small files, one with 36 the other with 10 records.  The profiles for the small files are now finished.  They fit into and completed information of families in the big file.

I have used large ged.com files for many years, I had read the instruction before I started, and I saw that 5,000 records was the limit.  Why did I made a mistake? Because at Wikitree, when a file is uploaded, it is necessary to review every single profile and edit the format.  I have never had to do that before.  In my case, duplicates were not the problem, editing for format was.

On the second and third ged.com I made some changes in settings, things like modifying the address line for a repository.  On the second and third ged.coms, the cleanup work was easier.  For future files I will select very small files, 10-30 records, upload them, cleanup the profiles and move on.  

I think that for first ged.com, for the benefit of the new person who has to learn the system, the first files should be limited to no more than 50 records.

For the experienced user, a higher limit could be set, but 5,000 is unreasonable, 500 would be a better number.

Answer 1

Couldn't agree more. I said much the same a while back. Would you like to share what changes you made to make editing easier?

Comments

Martin,

I think these are the big ones.  I suspect that issues depend on your system.  I am using TMG on windows 8, some records are over 40 years old having gone from a PAF Apple IIe system in the 1970's and converted, I do not know how many times.

on files 2 and 3 changes I made.

-did not export the Citation Reference Field - I often had pages of material in this field that was then included on many profiles. When I edit a profile, I may include the detail from this field for a specific profile, all the rest just show the source.

- did not export image and audio exhibts - the image does not get moved, just lots of unuseable reference lines

- modified the repository reference in my system - I show myself as the repository for books, e-mails, etc. that I have in my files. Becasue the reference was to my ID in my system it was not recoginised, this created a "not found" message, over and over.

- fix a data source in my system - there was a bad record in my system, for source, in the distant past a loop had inserted a few 1,000 repeats in an address, I had no idea - took awhile to find , there were hundred of lines in each wiki profile to delete that referenced that source.

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Philip, I'm so glad you persevered. It shows you are a worthy WikiTreer.

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Thanks Philip. That all makes sense, although I'm using Family Historian which is quite difficult to adapt.

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It makes sense that less is more in gedcoms uploads for the serious wiki  genealogist.

Answer 2

Chris actually just recently changed the instructions to say that while you can upload a GEDCOM of up to 5000 people, no more than 2500 should actually be imported (the rest should be skipped).

I agree that 5000 people is a crazy amount, especially for a brand new user. My Watchlist has less than 2000 people on it, and I'm pretty darn active on here. :) It's a pretty huge commitment to the site to manage 5000 profiles.

Comments

Firstly let me confess I did not import a gedcom onto WT, however I  wanted to comment on this discussion anyway.

Briefly I think the key words here are 'commitment to manage', as used by Lianne. Whilst I can see that people may want to contribute to the world tree by just adding their gedcom, maintaining an ongoing responsibility for their watchlist, is an aspect that needs to be repeatedly highlighted.

Thank you Phillip for your question which hopefully encourages people to be very circumspect when downlowding...

btw my watchlist is 2700 - way too many!!!!