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Post by chumley on Aug 16, 2010 0:03:00 GMT -5
Yes, I'm using Windows. Thanks for your technical assistance Doug! You taught an old dog a new trick.
It took me a day to figure out how to use the hyperlink after joining the forum. Can you explain how I can post the Excel tree from my hard drive? I see the insert image next to hyperlink.
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Post by Doug 周 on Aug 16, 2010 2:52:27 GMT -5
chumley ¿Were you able to save the image as a file onto your hard drive? If so, then the next step is uploading onto the Forum's internet post. I will move my answer to another thread, where I will add these instructions on how I think would be the easiest (IMHO) way to post images. Click=> here & scroll to Reply #18 on page 2. I want to leave this thread on Software Usage about your Excel files suggestions. I would like to have the photo posting information on another part of the forum (Tips on posting) where others can find it easily. This addition to this old 2008 post is just 'my way' of posting images. I found posting images to be initially conceptually difficult. Doug
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Post by chumley on Aug 16, 2010 20:51:35 GMT -5
Doug, Thank you very much for taking the time to help me step by step . I think I can get it to work. My personally created Excel family tree isn't fancy, but does require some info on family members (if known). It's not the typical tree branch that begins with the names of a husband and wife along with their years of birth & death followed by a line pointing to their children.
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Post by Doug 周 on Aug 17, 2010 2:14:59 GMT -5
Thank you very much for taking the time to help me step by step . I think I can get it to work. My personally created Excel family tree isn't fancy, but does require some info on family members (if known). It's not the typical tree branch that begins with the names of a husband and wife along with their years of birth & death followed by a line pointing to their children. ?Was the information clear?. Private email about how I can improve the instructions. So you are not an ‘old dog’!! From the spreadsheets, you can consider each sheet as a data entry page and use that format for entering the genealogy information into Geni.com. You then will make yourself a GEDCOM. As I have said before, the GEDCOM is the DNA of your family tree and it would be good to have a copy of that DNA in another format on your hard drive in addition to your Excel spreadsheet. See this post in response to staratnight about using Geni @ Re: How I recently obtained my jiapu. If you need help, start a new post on this subforum and I would be happy give advice. Save the Chinese characters as nicknames, or enter them in the <Edit Profile><About Me> section so the names are saved in the GEDCOM. Add your miscellaneous information into the same <Edit Profile><About Me> section. Export your GEDCOM and save it on the hard drive. This will give you experience navigating a genealogy software program, and should be a fountain of youth for that 'old dog' Doug
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Post by chumley on Aug 17, 2010 17:25:03 GMT -5
I think your instructions are perfect since I was able to do it. If I can do it, anybody can do it.
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Post by philiptancl on Aug 18, 2010 6:40:28 GMT -5
I received on personal email yesterday from Doug requesting me to response to some points raised in postings within this thread for which I had participated. Since the last few months I am pretty preoccupied with many things within my professional field (practically on a honorary basis) that left me with hardly any time to delve into my main private area of interest; i.e. Chinese genealogy. As such I hardly being following the postings in this Forum and had not seen those points that needed my response. For this I wish to apologize. As I said previously I used Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for all family trees to keep as backups to what I had entered into Geni. Previously Geni used to show the number of profiles within the Geni group I belonged. The last time that it showed such statistics, the Group has around 13,000 profiles; all connected to me either by blood or through marriages. Of these 13,000 profiles about 4,000 were added and manage by me. Gene Chin (my 50th cousin twice removed) of NY manages about 2,000. When I started out in 2003 to record my own family tree I knew only of my tree starting from my grandfather downwards. At that time I had about 290 profiles. I kept them in two forms; one master spreadsheet listing to the details for each of the 290 profiles and a separate spreadsheet to show vertical tree chart for each family branch; each branch is linked to the master list. Extract from the master list is shown below: A vertical tree chart for a family branch is show below: I had then thought that would the best I that I could possibly achieve in tracing my family tree; i.e. up to my grandfather. Though I had heard people talking about family records I never, in my wildest dream, had imagined that I would be able to trace my ancestry beyond that of my grandfather. In August 2007 when I went back to my ancestral village in China for the very first time, I was given the two volumes of my zupu that already included my name in it. It was like hitting the jackpot on the first try. It was indeed the happiest moment of my life to be given my zupu and so unexpectedly. I could had given an arm and a leg for it. Not knowing how to read or write Chinese but after spending many hours figuring the system works within the zupu, I managed to track my pedigree line all the way to Huang Di (2,697BC). At first I had used the vertical tree chart on a spreadsheet to record the pedigree line as shown above. In trying to branch out to others not within the pedigree line I find recording the names on vertical chart basis limited by number of columns available within a spreadsheet. In consequence, I switched the recording the name on the horizontal chart when recording many branches within a zupu on a spreadsheet. This is shown below for a portion of the tree chart: Whilst using spreadsheets to keep permanent records within the computer, the maneuvering around many different trees, either connected by blood or through marriages, is best done through Geni. I have not tried any others as I find myself comfortable in using Geni. Yes, all the 13,000 profiles so far are connected to one another through Geni group. Among the current generations connected to me by marriages, I already have 10 with pedigree lines going back at least about 20 generations from current time; 3 going about 20 generations back while 7 goes all the way to Huang Di. See this in the posting at: siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=names&action=display&thread=752&page=8Common Ancestor with Surname Chen « Reply #112 » In additions we have more than 6 that are connected beginning from generations back to current. If permitted, I too could have connected Henry (from very early time) and his brother-in-law (some 50 generations back).
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Post by lesthean on Aug 21, 2010 20:25:58 GMT -5
Thanks,Chumley
What you have described will work for me......being also an old dog
:-)
Les
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Post by kerry on Sept 10, 2010 7:58:24 GMT -5
OK - age has got nothing to do with it!javascript:add("%20:-X")
But I am going to chip in and suggest Excel is a BAD way to do genealogy. Wait! Hear me out!
Genealogy as studied and executed by the rest of the western world is almost impossible to do in Excel. Some people start there but the limitation very quickly show themselves. Rather than "converging" to a point as Chinese analysis does, genealogies of most other societies "diverge" or fan out. This is because all ancestors are relevant, not just the patriarchal line.
So if you are going to limit yourself to a study of one family, reproducing the jaipu format in Excel will probably work. If you want to be "broader" in your data gathering then get a real genealogy program. Prefereably one that does some Chinese characters as well (see other posts here).
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Post by ozone on Jan 31, 2011 8:14:18 GMT -5
My mother has been putting together our family tree for something like 20 years, maybe longer. Several years ago, Dad got her in front of a computer and all of the data is now in a software program called "Brother's Keeper" which supports the GEDCOM format.
Whilst the family tree currently spreads across Australia, and mostly back to old Mother England, this generation decided to throw a spanner in the works - 3 sons, marrying girls from Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia (Chinese descent) and Chinese - one of us divorced and remarried for those that were counting.
Not long ago I took a copy of mum's gedcom file to see if I could find better software for her to use. Brother's Keeper is great, but I think its Windows 3.11 era, and whilst it still runs, it lacks the flair and newer features of other programs I have seen.
My problem is, of course, how to enter the names of the in-laws and all of our kids, and further, the new ancestral lines? My plan was to take her file, update it to software that was easier for her to use, and had a few more bells and whistles, and then hand it back until such a time as she is ready to pass it on to me.
Entering Chinese text is not an issue, I can't read or write much, but my wife is a quick typist and has even taught me how to enter a few characters in Chinese text using Microsoft's QuanPin IME, starting with my Chinese name, On Gwok Wei (or An Guo Wei .. depending on your dialect) - 安国伟.
The problem is, of course, that I have not yet found a Genealogy program that supports Unicode. I find this surprising as GEDCOM has supported unicode for some time now, and you'd think that the software would be ahead of the standard.
Reading through the list of software that people use, it seems that there really isn't much of an offline solution. If I read the above correctly, there is online support, (Heritage.com and Webtrees) but no support offline. I could go online, but I know that my mother would be horrified so that won't be happening any time soon.
It sounds like there is support in phpgedview, but it seems like that is a viewer only and not editor. Is that true?
Is it really the case that there does not yet exist genealogy software that supports Unicode Characters?
The Excel solution looks cool, however, in addition to Kerry's point, Excel is non standard, so it won't export easily to any other software in future and you run the risk of ending up with a file that one of your descendants will either have to re-enter by hand into another software format, or, more likely, will discard and/or lose.
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Post by chinesesurname on Aug 13, 2011 9:35:16 GMT -5
I started with paper and pencil. In the 80s I used an IBM xt clone with a Chinese character generator board to add Chinese names to the American names. This was a simple word processor which output to a graphic dot matrix printer. I used it to send genealogy Christmas card to my close relatives. There were a half dozen family lines. The clone went kaput about 5 years ago and I continue the card, 3 8.5 x 11 pages, by updating graphic images of the pages. For a while I used Brother's Keeper, ignoring Chinese characters, to integrate multiple separate families and add notes. I later started using a Macintosh with Chinese language kit. With that I started using Reunion and could display Big5 characters. I was able to export a gedcom to my palm pilot and with a Chinese character software display these when I went to the villages in 2000 aided by a China Travel Service translator/guide. I am Chinese illiterate. The Chinese language kit was left behind by Apple and Reunion put off supporting Unicode, so I put these things aside for a while. Eventually I took a gedcom from my obsolete Mac Reunion and uploaded to Geni.com, losing the notes, with the Big5 coming as gibberish. I have a scanner which does Chinese OCR so I corrected some of the Chinese characters. Also, on a subsequent trip to my Dad's ancestral village I gave updated information and a donation to the headman, and received a year or two later an updated village genealogy with our pages conveniently marked. So by scanning these pages I have my father's line back to NG Gee Suey.Wu Zixu. I recently upgraded my Reunion, now that it supports Unicode. I am also in the AncestorSync for Geni beta test program. I tried exporting test downloads into free versions of Ancestral Quet, Legacy, and Roots Magic. They all failed on receiving Chinese characters. PAF gets the Chinese Characters but not all Geni.com data. AncestorSync is announced to eventually support Reunion, but not in the current beta. Importing gedcom receives the Chinese characters but not all fields. I tried importing gedcom to several versions of Gramps. On the pc version for thumb drives, the Chinese characters appear inside fields but are garbled on window title bars. On the built Mac version it's the reverse, good on title bars, garbled in fields. Is there an easy way to fix these? I have downloaded xampp for thumb drive, but have not had a chance to try phpgedview or web trees.
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Post by Doug 周 on Aug 14, 2011 10:21:42 GMT -5
ozone, I am so sorry, as moderator, that I missed your post by 8 month. I need to improve my monitoring techniques. I hope you are still following this forum. There are more than a few onsite/offline programs which support unicode. RootsMagic, reviewed by Kerry, the Latter Day Saint’s PAF, Ancestral Quest (the next upgrade from PAF), and Ahnenblatt are some examples. My favorite solution for onsite programs is what chinesesurname is planning to try: xampp with phpgedview or webtrees. If you are not a computer newbie, then I would recommend webtrees with xampp. Chinesesurname is configuring xampp on his onsite workstation via a thumbdrive/flashdrive. Later when he wants to go online, in order to collaborate with geographically distant relatives, he will have been using a program with which he was already familiar. This link has a good compiliation of genealogy programs which use unicode, which operating system, along with other features and URL’s in Wikipedia's Comparison of Genealogy Softwareclick. You probably saw this in Henry’s list of software reviews on this post: Genalogy Software ComparisonsclickHowever what these lists of unicode capable programs do not denote are two of the more important and generally lacking feature in Chinese genealogy software: 1. Ability to handle multiple names. The Chinese males up to the middle of the last century had were very comfortable with multiple names. This makes recording these names vital. This is a good overview of the multiple Chinese Namesclick written by twoupman, a moderator of this Forum. You will also have to deal with the multiple spelling of English names in both sexes. This is because of romanization/tranileteration issues. See this wiki: How to Start Your Chinese Family Heritage ResearchclickHaving a program which could archive all these names AND allow searching for these hypernyms (multiple names) within the program is important. 2. Ability to read and write an accurate GEDCOM. I see that already you are using GEDCOM from your mother’s Brother’s Keeper program. Whereas GEDCOM is supposed to be a standard program, in reality it acts like the multiple dialects in China. A person from Taishan pronounces a word differently than someone speaking Sam Yup and different than someone speaking Mandarin. Different programs read or interpret GEDCOM differently. Kerry’s review of RootsMagic shows the inability to read the multiple name GEDCOM from webtrees. The last thing you want is to lose data. The downside of webtrees or phpgedview is the basic CMS (Content Management Services). CMS is the ability to display and manage photos, videos, and documents. This ability is a factor which makes family heritage studies FUN for many people. Webtrees and phpgedview have just a basic display of these contents, but there is so much potential. Online programs do not have to go through the design and coding cycle that onsite programs need. Any of the modern programs should help you add family lines with inlaws and cousins. They have advanced to include adoptions, divorces, remarriage, and circular relationships (related people forming families) I hope that explains and help answers some of your concerns. IMHO, Doug
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Post by Doug 周 on Aug 14, 2011 10:38:49 GMT -5
chinesesurname the veracity of a GEDCOM, both reading and writing, is a very important part of genealogy software. I have not used AncestralSync, but in the basic Geni.com program, I had emphasized adding data into the miscellaneous section to improve the possibility of transferring data. You found out that Legacy will not support unicode. Kerry also had issues with the unicode capable Roots Magic importing the multiple names of a GEDCOM from Phpgedview. If you have less than 500 profiles or names in your family tree, I would recommend you adjust your data in a selected reference family and selected number of profiles in your Brother’s Keeper program, generate a GEDCOM, and then find that reference family and profile. Look at the raw GEDCOM with a wordprocessor/text editor and make sure the data is correct. Then transfer the data into your local webtrees (you are not a newbie so I would not recommend Phpgedview. There is very little new development in Phpgedview) and move on from there. Kerry and I have about 2k profile, whereas many of the programmers of webtrees have 4k-10k profiles. The accuracy and security of their data is very important to them (and to all of us). If you have over 500 profiles (did you enter your data from your jiapu yet?) You might want to try this GEDCOM validator Ged-Inlineclick . I got the reference from Tamura Jones at this site: Modern Software Experienceclick. She mentioned VGed as another GEDCOM validator. Her site has several links at the bottom for a more thorough discussion of GEDCOM. Then you can use a word or text processor, manually correct your GEDCOM (I did this using Microsoft Notepad and the search and replace. It does require a deeper knowledge of the GEDCOM procedures and nomenclature) What kind of scanner program do you use with Chinese OCR? I have recommended COCR2:Experimental Chinese OCRclick for years and it has been 90% reliable, but is getting long on the tooth. IMHO, Doug
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Post by Henry on Aug 14, 2011 13:00:33 GMT -5
Dear Colleagues,
As a professional standards developer for the Federal government, American National Standards Institute, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for over 30 years, I fully agree with Doug's support for the GEDCOM, as the de facto standard for the interchange of data elements between various genealogical software packages and I also fully support the adoption of the formal ISO UNICODE standard for the encoding of all written languages, especially for the digital encoding of Chinese characters.
The massive amount of tedious inputing & updating of Chinese characters in Chinese lineages for any particular genealogy software can be overwhelming, however, even beyond frightening is not using the existing standards to encode and to capture and save all this information and work for transferring and sharing to other genealogy software. Genealogy software packages will come and go, but, the genealogical lineages must be preserved.
I feel this is especially true in the case of Chinese genealogy: our Chinese ancestors that have endured many impediments and hardships, yet, they have managed to preserve our clan & family lineages over thousands of years. This tradition of dedication deserves nothing less than our obligation and responsibility to preserve theses lineages for our descendants and the future.
Henry
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Post by chinesesurname on Aug 17, 2011 5:12:42 GMT -5
Doug, Besides AncestorSync export, I also have tested using Geni gedcom export of my direct line, about 900. I originally uploaded about 1600, descendants of my great-grandfathers plus inlays. I will have to upgrade my Geni to pull those distant cousins. I especially need local control as some have taken over their profiles and removed information. Right now I am placing both alphabetic and Chinese names in each field of the Geni first, middle, and surname fields. I find it disconcerting when the Chinese characters are lost on gedcom import. Also, I need to get a handle on organizing my documents photos and videos before my wife throws out the "junk" or another hard drive or computer fails. I guess I should try to bring up web trees on a Mac external drive as my windows machine is a finicky single point of failure.
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Post by Doug 周 on Aug 17, 2011 6:10:04 GMT -5
chinesesurname,
With 1600 profiles, you need a robust program which can write an accurate GEDCOM. You definitely have 'graduated' from Geni.
Another reason I like webtrees is that the programmers all seem to understand the GEDCOM nomenclature and attempt to read and write to those standards.
Finally, with webtrees, exporting your GEDCOM, you would have preserved the lineages. You can then archive and copy the whole media folder to quickly save your videos, photos, and documents.
Private email me and I can share a technique to name your media files so they are connected to the correct profile. It makes organization and transferring of all your information to other programs much easier. Click on the email icon under my photo avatar on the left.
Doug
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