UncleGED FAQs

Below are some frequently asked questions regarding UncleGED:

  1. Can UncleGED be configured to filter out specific information (certain individuals, specific sources, notes, etc.)?
  2. I have recently upgraded the operating system on my PC and I use an older genealogy software that does not run under the new operating system. As a result  I can not open my Family Tree files. Will using Uncle GED allow me to do this?
  3. UncleGED takes too long to process my GEDCOM file. Is there any thing that I can do to speed things up?
  4. UncleGED produces way too many HTML files. Is there anything that I can do to reduce the number of HTML files produced by UncleGED?
  5. I have noticed that the first "family" file (famxxx.html) produced by UncleGED is not named "fam001.html". Also the numbering of the files seems to skip in places. Why is this?
  6. How can I find out which HTML file has a specific individual in it?
  7. I have 300 families in my database, yet after running UncleGED I find that there are more than 300 famxxx.html files in the html output directory. Why is this?
  8. I used UncleGED to create a set of HTML files for my website. On other other web-pages on my website I  provided links to specific famxxx.html pages created by UncleGED. Later on I made changes to my genealogy database, generated a new GEDCOM file and processed this file with UncleGED. Now the links on my other pages are broken. The file numbering has changed. What happened?
  9. Okay, I created the HTML files, now what? How do I publish these files to the world wide web?
  10. I have a website. How do I get all of these HTML files on to my website?
  11. UncleGED produced a ton of HTML files and I've tried uploading the files to my website via FTP, but it is just not working. Why is that?
  12. There are notes in my genealogy database that are either not showing up in the HTML files produced by UncleGED or they are showing up the wrong places. Why is that?
1. My GEDCOM file has information (certain individuals, specific sources, notes, etc.)  in it that I do not want appearing in the HTML files created by UncleGED. Is there some way to tell UncleGED not to include this information?

No. However there are the configuration options in UncleGED that do some filtering: the "Privacy" option and the "ExcludeNotes" options , but these options either mark an individual as private (displaying only the indvidual's name), exclude all notes or excludes an individual (and associated information) based on birth date. It is best to use whatever export filtering options that your genealogy software provides. It some cases you may need to edit the GEDCOM file by-hand which I realize may be daunting task for some.

2. I have recently upgraded the operating system on my PC and I use older genealogy software that does not run under the new operating system. As a result I cannot open my Family Tree files. Will using Uncle GED allow me to do this?

UncleGED is designed to do one thing: read and process a GEDCOM and output the information found in the GEDCOM file to HTML format. If your "family tree" files are in GEDCOM format then UncleGED can read the files, but that is probably not what you actually want to do. Different genealogy software packages store the genealogy data in a native format specific to each program. Some store the data in a proprietary format; while others may use some standard format such as Dbase or MS Access. Some genealogy programs can read the native format of other genealogy programs and allow you to import directly from the other guy's format. For the most part all genealogy programs can import and export the GEDCOM format. Therefore the best advice is to back-up your genealogy data by exporting it to GEDCOM. This way if you switch from one genealogy program to another you should be able to import your GEDCOM file into the new program with little effort.

3. UncleGED takes too long to process my GEDCOM file. Is there anything that I can do to speed things up?

Yes, two things a) Run UncleGED on a PC with a faster processor and more memory or b) Use a GEDCOM file with fewer families and individuals

4. UncleGED produces way too many HTML files. Is there anything that I can do to reduce the number of HTML files produced by UncleGED?

Yes, use a GEDCOM file with fewer families and individuals.

5. I have noticed that the first "family" file (famxxx.html) produced by UncleGED is not named "fam001.html". Also the numbering of the files seems to skip in places. Why is this?

UncleGED numbers each family file using the MRIN (marriage reference identifier) assigned to each family in the GEDCOM file. This numbering is controlled by two factors a) the genealogy program that was used to produce the file and b) any filtering that was applied to the data when the GEDCOM file was exported. In most genealogy programs you have no control over the MRIN numbering and MRINs are usually assigned on a first-come/first-serve basis. If you export only a sub-set of your genealogy data out to GEDCOM the resulting file may or may not have an MRIN # 1 in the file and there may be gaps in the numbering of HTML files.

6. How can I find out which HTML file has a specific individual in it?

When UncleGED builds the HTML files it creates a text file called "list.txt". This file can be found in the UncleGED application directory (the directory where UncleGED is installed). This file lists the individual by name, REFN, and html file.

7. I have 300 families in my database, yet after running UncleGED I find that there are more than 300 famxxx.html files in the html output directory. Why is this?

Each time you run UncleGED it writes the html files into the html directory. If there are already html files in the directory, UncleGED will over-write existing files with new files of the same name. If none of the existing html files correspond to the new files they will remain untouched. You can sort the directory contents to determine which ones are new files and which ones are left-overs, but it is probably best to just delete all of the existing html files before doing new run.

8. I used UncleGED to create a set of HTML files for my website. On other web-pages on my website I  provided links to specific famxxx.html pages created by UncleGED. Later on I made changes to my genealogy database, generated a new GEDCOM file and processed this file with UncleGED. Now the links on my other pages are broken. The file numbering has changed. What happened?

Two things can cause this to happen: 1) Not all genealogy software packages use the MRIN numbering system used in the GEDCOM format. In this case the genealogy software generates the MRIN numbers when you export the file out to GEDCOM and in most cases the MRIN numbering will not change from export to export, but some changes made to the database such as the deletion of families can cause the MRIN numbers to changes. 2) Importing one GEDCOM into an existing genealogy database will cause the existing MRIN numbering in the import file to change. (see also response to question #5).

9. Okay, I created the HTML files, now what? How do I publish these files to the World Wide Web? 10. I have a website. How do I get all of these HTML files on to my website? 11. UncleGED produced a ton of HTML files and I've tried uploading the files to my website via FTP, but it is just not working. Why is that?

Before you can publish to the World Wide Web you first need a website where you can publish the files. For this you will need to either check with your ISP (internet service provider) to see if they have already provided you with a website or space on a website or contact a IPP (internet presence provider) and inquire about establishing your own domain name and website. Once you have a place to put your files you'll need to know how upload (install) the files on your website. Again check with your ISP or IPP to find out how this is done. Problems with uploading a large number of files via FTP to a website are quite common. Many IPPs limit the amount of data that can be uploaded per day or per month. Some limit the duration of each FTP session to few minutes. Also you need to consider how much space is available to you on your website. You can determine how much space is required for the HTML files generated by UncleGED by using the Windows Explorer. Right-click the html directory and from the pop-up menu select properties. The properties dialog box will tell you how space the contents of the html directory take-up.

12. There are notes in my genealogy database that are either not showing up in the HTML files produced by UncleGED or they are showing up the wrong places. Why is that?

Not all genealogy software packages handle notes in the same way. Notes that appear in one field in a GEDCOM export may appear under a different field in another GEDCOM export depending on the genealogy program used to produce the GEDCOM file. Compounding this is the fact that not all users of genealogy software use the documentation features of the genealogy program in the same way. UncleGED uses a couple of tricks to try and get around these differences and attempt to find the notes in a GEDCOM file. One example of this is the "OccLocEqualsOccText" option in the UncleGED configuration. When this option is set to true it will correct a problem found in GEDCOM files produced with  Family Tree Maker (FTW) where the occupation location and occupation description are found in the same field in the GEDCOM file. Similar issues have been noticed in other genealogy software such as Legacy or PAF and UncleGED does look for a "signature" in the header portion of the GEDCOM to determine which genealogy software was used to produce the GEDCOM. UncleGED recognizes Family Tree Maker, Legacy and PAF and adjusts accordingly to deal with differences between these software programs and the way in which each one "does" notes. As these are the only genealogy software programs that I have access to, I am not able to design UncleGED to deal with the particular way in which any other programs output their data to GEDCOM. If all else fails, try sending me a sample GEDCOM to look at and I will see about making changes to UncleGED to handle these differences in other programs. Don't just send a partial GEDCOM file as I will need to test with a complete GEDCOM file. Also, the sample GEDCOM need not be and probably should NOT be a full export from your database.