ged. com. files

[pennytom]

please help. i have been sent a ged com file from australia, but can't work out how to open it. have down loaded gedmill, but still can't do it. anyone help me please

[Necromancer]

Not sure what Gedmill is .... but the GEDCOM file format is the recognized standard for Genealogical Applications .... basically you need a Program/Application that can 'understand' the File Format.

PAF from the LDS (free download - www.familysearch.org) is one pretty good example - after that you're spending money ....

Family Tree Maker - FTM is in my opinion the best all-rounder - from Ancestry - Google it !

[RJ_Paton]

Gedmill isn't actually a reader for gedcom files .... it takes the gedcom file and converts it to html pages for a web site. You could get it to import the gedcom file and then output a web site which could then be viewed using your internet browser

Possibly one of the free genealogy programs would allow you to import and then view the information or you could try genviewer from
http://www.mudcreeksoftware.com/genviewer_overview.htm

The "Lite" version is free and would allow you to look at the information.

[pennytom]

thank you both for your quick reply. I am very much a novice at all this, and have tried bothways to no avail. ancestry said it wasn't a ged file but the sender said it is, so still none the wiser. but thanks anyway.

[sunnylady2005]

Is the title "[name].ged"?  if not then what is its suffix - as someone here would recognise it from their programme perhaps.   Or could it have been corrupted in the sending (unzipping?)?

[downside]

Hi pennytom

Are you using a computer family tree software program at the moment?

You should be able to test whether it is a gedcom file by right clicking the file you were sent and then select Open with and then select Notepad.  The opening lines should look similar to the example below:

0 HEAD
1 SOUR IGI
2 VERS 5.0
2 NAME International Genealogical Index (R)
2 CORP The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
3 ADDR 50 East North Temple Street
4 CONT Salt Lake City, Utah 84150
2 DATA International Genealogical Index
3 DATE 6 June 2006
3 COPR Copyright (c) 1980, 2002
1 DEST PAF
1 DATE 6 June 2006
2 TIME 07:49:43
1 FILE BLOGGS-1805
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 CHAR ANSEL
1 SUBM @SUB01@
1 SUBN @N01@
0 @SUB01@ SUBM
1 NAME Created by FamilySearch (TM) Internet Genealogy Service
1 ADDR 50 East North Temple Street
2 CONT Salt Lake City, Utah 84150
0 @N01@ SUBN
1 DESC 1
1 ORDI N

If it is in English then it should be OK.  You will still need a program to interpret and format the data though if you do not already have one.

downside