Saturday, November 13, 2010

FTM for Mac: Installation and GEDCOM issues

FTM for Mac: Installation and GEDCOM issues

Today my wife and I received our copy of the CD with the new Family Tree Maker (FTM) for Mac genealogy software. I hope to share some comments, here, from time to time, as I install and migrate my family research to this new software on the Mac from my old PC laptop using RootsMagic4. Most of my research work took place between 1995 and 2003 - first on Reunion on the Mac, then on RootsMagic on the PC, through several transfers and iterations of software. I know I lost a lot of my notes/citations when I moved from Reunion to the PC. It appears I will retain my notes from the PC back to the Mac.

The installation of the FTM for Mac from the CD went very quickly. I use a MacBook Pro with Mac OS X Version 10.5.8 with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, for those who care about such things.

Earlier, I had created GEDCOM files from each of my three family databases via RootsMagic4. I must admit that I was shocked when they were unacceptable to the FTM for Mac because: "GEDCOM files must be 5.5 or higher." I have the latest update of RootsMagic4 on my PC, why would the GEDCOM generated there not be acceptable???

Curiously, as I was "fooling around" trying to figure out what to do, I double-clicked one of the GEDCOM files on the PC - and it opened up in Family Tree Maker 11, which I had loaded on the PC at some time in the past, but never used. After verifying that all my information appeared to be there, I created a Export/GEDCOM file in FTM11. When I opened that in the Mac on the FTM for Mac, it opened just fine. I proceeded to do the same with the other two files.

And life goes on...

Families are Forever!  ;-)

2 comments:

  1. Bill,

    RootsMagic 4 exports GEDCOM using 5.5.1 (which is obviously "higher" than 5.5). But FTM doesn't really check if it is 5.5 or higher... it just looks for 5.5.

    - Bruce

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the prompt reply, Bruce. I wonder why it wouldn't take it? Just a bug, or glitch, perhaps. I was certain your program was "5.5 or higher" It is still a new competitive program...
    By the way, your RootsMagic4 support has been excellent. Great program, I recommend it highly for the PC. ;-)

    ReplyDelete