Missing Sources

[IanB]

I took the plunge and purchased FTM2014, installed it, updated, then imported my existing Legacy database (fdb). There were only 2 errors in the import, both formatting mistakes in dates, easy to correct. However, when I look at my data in FTM all of my source media and text is missing.

In Legacy, for most Births, Deaths and Marriages I scanned the relevant certificate and attached it as source citation, I also transcribed the text from the certificate. Here's an example from the Gedcom (note again, I did NOT import from the Gedcom but from the FDB, this is an extract from a gedcom exported by Legacy).....

2 SOUR @S56@
3 PAGE birth certificate for Elsie Freeman, born 12 August 1897; citing 9b/165, August quarter 1892, North Bierley registration district, Drighlington sub-district
3 QUAY 3
3 DATA
4 TEXT 12th August 1897Moor Side Drighlington, Elsie, girl, father Sam Freeman, mother Ann Freeman formerly Holmes, father occupation Wheelwright (journeyman), informant Sam Freeman father Moor Side Drighlington, registered on 9th September 1897
3 OBJE
4 FORM jpg
4 FILE C:\Users\Ian\My Folders\Family Tree\LegacyImages\ElsieFreemanBirth.jpg
4 TITL Elsie Freeman birth certificate
4 _DATE 12 Aug 1897
4 _SCBK Y
4 _PRIM Y
4 _TYPE PHOTO

The same problem appears with Census records where I scanned the entry, attached it and transcribed the text. Here's an example....
2 SOUR @S22@
3 PAGE (www.ancestry.co.uk : accessed 2nd December 2011), entry for Holmes household
3 QUAY 3
3 DATA
4 TEXT Top of Town, Birstall
5 CONT Thomas Holmes, Head, Married, 34, Coal Miner, Birstall
5 CONT Harriet Holmes, wife, Married, 34, , Birstall
5 CONT Abraham Holmes, son, , 8, Scholar, Birstall
5 CONT Frank Holmes, son, 5, , Birstall
5 CONT Ann Holmes, daughter, 31, , Birstall [age is clearly a mistake by census & should be 3]
5 CONT Henry Holmes, son, 1, , Birstall
3 OBJE
4 FORM jpg
4 FILE C:\Users\Ian\My Folders\Family Tree\LegacyImages\HolmesHousehold1861Census.jpg
4 TITL Thomas Holmes Household
4 _DATE 7th April 1861
4 _SCBK Y
4 _PRIM Y
4 _TYPE PHOTO


None of these scans and associated text appear in FTM, they seem to have been completely ignored and this is a major problem for me as I have hundreds of them, re-entering it all would be a massive task and really out of the question. Any suggestions on how to fix this anyone?

Thanks
Ian

[IanB]

Apologies, I've been investigating further. I found a link by various entries to a "source citation", when I click that I can see the text I entered for each certificate so that has all imported correctly, however there is no link to the scan.

I am still unable to find any details of the scans or text I had entered from the census records.

[Caroline]

I don't use either program, but isn't there somewhere in the Settings to tell FTM where to look for media? If so, then you probably just need to change that.

[Caroline]

Assuming that they also show up as missing when using the software, this may help:

http://ancestryforums.custhelp.com/posts/e75615b130

http://help.ancestry.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5241/kw/find%20missing%20media

[Caroline]

A thought - you don't have to actually use FTM to get the subscription (unless you want to), just install the software.

[DavidNewton]

I'm no expert on GEDCOM but the OBJE section within the source seems to be the full multimedia record description rather than a link to a multimedia record. My experience of Legacy is that the management of media leaves a lot to be desired, FTM on the other hand has much more sophisticated media management and maybe there is some stuff falling through the 'cracks'. It might be easier to export the GEDCOM from Legacy and import into FTM. Export from Legacy has lots of customization options and a bit of experimenting might do the job.

I still have Legacy installed but I make very little use of it having transferred to Family Historian a couple of years back.

David

[IanB]

Thank you both for your replies.

When I import the Legacy db I cannot find any reference to missing media, it simply seems to be ignoring the fact that there is a jpg attached to the citations. As such I can find no reference to a feature to relink media but I'm new to FTM and may be missing something.

I have tried importing the Gedcom as a new tree. What happens is that in Legacy some of these scans are referenced many times, some of them by as many as 40 different sources, for example a census entry could link to all the individuals DoB's, addresses, occupations etc., when FTM imports it I end up with an entry for every one of them. So, if there are 40 references to a census page scan then that jpg is copied into the media folder 40 times and each copy is linked to a different source citation (or to put it another way, each source citation has a link to it's own copy of the jpg). Clearly this is NOT what I wanted! Funnily enough I have tried this same thing using Family Historian and experienced exactly the same problem. Clearly this is a problem with the gedcom produced by Legacy but I was hoping one of these program would have come across this problem and fixed it, disappointed again.

[DavidNewton]

Within FTM the search for missing media items, according to p279 of the Companion Guide is "Click the Media button on the main toolbar. Click Media>Find Missing Media. A list of unlinked images appears"

I can only speculate as to what is happening here. As you say it seems as if FTM is treating all the copies of the citation (with media) as distinct. The simplest way to find out if this is happening is to look at the sources window. Selecting a master source will display all the citations to that source in the top centre window and selecting a citation will give a list of the events linked to that citation. If there are multiple identical citations each with just one event per citation then FTM is not recognising the copies of the citation as the same. The identical citations 'should' appear as one in the source/citation window with the list of the events etc to which a citation is linked in the bottom centre of the window. The media tab in that bottom centre pane should show you the media. In fact in the citation pane each citation with media attached is identified by an icon (sorry can't remember what it looks like) and is a quick way of identifying whether or not a citation has an attached image.

Of course, sorry, none of this helps to solve your problem and given your description I cannot see any solution which does not involve major amounts of editing. It might be possible to resolve this in the full version of Family Historian using a plugin but I would not like to give any guarantee of that.

David

[IanB]

Hello again, I think I'm somewhat encouraged this morning :o What I have done is to delete all the trees I have imported so far and clear out everything, then I re-imported the Legacy Gedcom and looked at the links you describe carefully, it actually looks not too bad. Following your description there are now clearly images linked to many citations which is what I need, I THINK! What is confusing is that, following your description, I look under sources, then click one of the hundreds of 'source groups' in the left pane, then click the links tab (center bottom pane) and that correctly shows 5 links, then I click the media tab (also center bottom) and for some reason it shows 5 images of the same jpg, but I suspect this is correct, just confusing. When I click on any one of these five the image appears and in the bottom-right corner it shows the path and filename for that image and all 5 are the same, so that looks correct, it just to me seems an odd way of showing this media tab, I don't see why it has to show that same image 5 times. Does what I'm seeing sound correct?

What I find even more confusing is when I try to follow your instructions to find missing media, I click the Media tab on the main toolbar and see hundreds and hundreds of images listed, many of them duplicated over and over. It looks like it's showing every media entry it finds (in the same way that it shows the 5 images) ignoring the fact that many are duplicated. I've no idea why it would do this.

There are still 2 issues.
1. All the images are still in my original folder. I had expected that FTM might copy these into a central folder so everything is together. Is this not what should happen and if it is then how do I make it happen?

2. I have noticed that another of the gedcom entries appears not to be imported (I might just be missing where they've gone to but I have looked everywhere I can think of) - TODO items. I had quite a few of these and can't find any of them. Here's an example from the gedcom....
1 _TODO
2 DESC Get certificate
2 _CAT Death Certificate
2 DATE 16 Sep 2005
2 STAT Open
2 TYPE 0
2 PRTY 8
2 REPO @R0@
Although I have quite a lot of these and would really like to get them imported it's not really a big deal, I can easily (I think) type them in again with reference to the gedcom.

Thanks once more
Ian

[DavidNewton]

The multiple media links in the media tab do not seem right. However, the fact that they are all links to the same image is good, at least you do not have multiple copies of the image. Regarding the gathering of the media into a central location FTM will not disturb your original files and normally when you add media you get the option to link to the file where it is or copy it into the associated media folder and link to it there I also have a vague recollection (and sorry that is all it is_ that you can choose to copy the media into a central folder when you import the GEDCOM. Even if that is not the case I think there is a way to force FTM to make the copies but I confess I cannot recall how. Perhaps someone with a currently installed FTM can help.

Regarding the _TODO this is a user (i.e. Legacy) defined tag indicated by the initial underline. I guess FTM does not recognise it. There should be a log file with the import it would be worth a look to see what issues FTM has reported. It should be in the Family Tree Maker folder in Documents with a double extension .import.log.

David

[IanB]

David, Thanks for all your replies. I'm very unsure about ftm. They claim that it can import a Legacy database but clearly it cannot, or at least it seems to make a mess of importing these source images and doesn't even recognize a Legacy TODO tag. Maybe there are other issues that I haven't yet found. I'm going to have to consider how much work it will be for me to correct these issues and right now I'm not even sure what I need to do with the image problem.