Genealogy Chat

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My computer is on its last legs but I cannot transfer my family tree data. The original family tree CD came free, and also has an encyclopaedia on it, but it is the complete family tree programme. The idea is you pop it into the D Drive and it dumps itself onto the C Drive, or at least that's what happened with the old computer. When I put the original CD into the new computer, it loads the encyclopaedia but not the family tree. The troubleshooting section gives instructions for manually running the FT - one involves going into the D Drive and the other the C Drive. Unfortunately neither of the files it suggests have installed on the new computer. When I search for family tree, it tells me there are no matching search results. The D Drive contains only the encyclopaedia, but nothing about the FT. I burned all the FT data from the old computer's C Drive onto a new CD, but whenever I try to use it in the new computer, it gives me one of two error messages - one is something to do with a DLL and the other says that 'windows cannot open this application because it needs to know that type of program created it'. The old computer is Windows 98, the new is XP. Any suggestions please.

Do you still have the old windows 98 computer where you can access your family history data. If so, look for a function to create a gedcom file. It should be under the file tab, then export. If you find that, then export your data as a gedcom, put that on a floppy or a cd. If your family history programme will open on your new computer but without the data, reverse the sequence and import the gedcom. If you dont have your family history programme, download another one, I would suggest Cumberland Family Tree from cf-software and download the old 2.51 version, then import your gedcom into that. If your original programme does not support a gedcom export, then I cant think of anything else.

If all else fails, you have 40 people in your tree on here. You can alway export that as a gedcom, as I think that is working now. Just scroll down a bit to import/export tree

Hi Carol My new computer is not connected to the internet. It will not install the family history software as it is most insistant that the software is not on the CD (it is). Would gedcom still work, would it open the data in Word or Excel?

A gedcom will open in word, but not in a format you could read easily This is the sort of thing you would get. You would need to trawl through it and pick out the information you want. 0 HEAD 1 SOUR GC 2 VERS 1 2 NAME Genes Reunited 1 DATE 20 Oct 2004 2 TIME 21:30:28 1 CHAR ANSI 1 FILE Flew505585.ged 1 GEDC 2 VERS 5.5 0 @I1@ INDI 1 NAME Gerald John /Bissett/ 1 SEX M 1 BIRT 2 DATE 1 FAMC @F3@ 1 FAMS @F30@ 0 @I2@ INDI 1 NAME Walter James /Flew/ 1 SEX M 1 BIRT 2 DATE 1 FAMC @F26@ 1 FAMS @F31@ 0 @I3@ INDI 1 NAME Sheila Frances /Ham/ 1 SEX F 1 BIRT 2 DATE 1 FAMS @F4@ 1 FAMC @F27@ 0 @I4@ INDI 1 NAME Jean /Holmes/ 1 SEX F 1 BIRT 2 DATE 1 FAMS @F5@ 0 @I5@ INDI

The software on the CD can't vanish although it could get damaged. Have you tried browsing the CD? in the folder where the FT is there should be a something like "setup". Most 98 software will run Ok but XP will give warnings. If you can't do this follow the above advice. Opening a Gedcom in a word processor will open it as a text file for editing. You need to open it in a FT program to create trees. Bob

Thanks, will give it a go and see what happens.