Gedcoms and Trees – a brief introduction
There is a lot of work in compiling family trees. I found that having too many people on one tree tends to make the tree difficult to use, plus there were times when for research related reasons (e.g. perhaps I was unsure that a line I was following was my family). I wanted to keep a particular branch of my family in its own database. This lead to me keeping multiple trees going which I found much easier in use, and which I could easily merge using my main program if required.
The programs used in compiling family history data this tend to use file formats which are unique to themselves, or interchangeable with a limited number of other programs, when they can transfer the data without error. The recommended standard format, which most can output is Gedcom, which is meant to be universally exchangeable. Unfortunately the guidelines for its use are open to very differing interpretations, which means data doesn’t always exchange as you hoped. For this reason after trying several programs I opted for one which uses Gedcom as its file system, and which works as near to the standards as I could find. (Family Historian), I then use an assortment of smaller programs and utilities to present my data in other formats. The Complete Genealogy Reporter is one of these, and has been used to prepare the following reports, which contain data and easily useable tree diagrams.
IMPORTANT- TREES IN THIS SECTION
The trees and data in this section are generated by a program which needs a key person around whom to generate the report. Relationships within the data given are therefore only of relevance to that person. For most of the trees except the READ TREE this person is the link person who appears on both trees at the point I chose to have a separate tree for a given family line. However the trees and data are accurate in every respect and can be followed for any individual named in the data. My main Tree (or trunk) is the READ TREE, the rest of the trees form the branches and the roots of my family tree. From the Link person, whose surname is used to name the new tree that branches off, there are usually both lines of ancestry and descendancy given through that person and any of their siblings and related family. As stated previously, the trees have all the basic data needed included, but there is much more information available, so if you have any questions please contact me. Although some people are represented on more than one tree, the majority appear only on the tree of a specific family line.
In this case by looking at the FAMILY NAMES INDEX I collated, you can find a specific person and choose which tree to view if they appear on more than one.
An overview of the relationship between the trees listed can be found HERE