Instructions

 

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I have written this simple Excel to Gedcom converter, it does have some limitations and it has some strict filename and layout restrictions. I wrote this to assist in getting information from the US SSDI that I had scraped into Excel into Family Historian, which is my programme of choice. As I have received feedback from users of this converter I have increased functionality to include additional input templates.

Limitations

  • Currently only individual’s birth and death date and place are imported. Notes in the notes field are also imported. No family, marriage, children etc. records can be imported.
  • The Excel templates that can be downloaded from the site must be used for creating the input file.
  • The import template must be saved as a CSV file from Excel prior to uploading for conversion.

I will look to removing these limitations in later versions of this application.

How to use

  1. Download the appropriate template  from the website. It is saved as Excel v2003 and so will open on that version or subsequent versions of Excel. You will be presented with a template that looks likeexcel2
  2. Cut and paste the data from your own Excel spreadsheet into this template so that your data looks something like thisexcel
  3. The ID field must be a number; it can start at any integer that you like. The records must be consecutively numbered as integers which can be accomplished in the usual way with Excel just by filling down.
  4. Very important: your data in the spreadsheet must not have any commas in it. If it does the Gedcom creation will fail.
  5. Now save the Excel spreadsheet as a CSV file with any file name BUT it must have a file extension of csv. If it doesn’t have a csv extension you will not be able to upload it to the converter. Ignore the usual Excel warnings.
  6. Go to the conversion page here  to create your Gedcom.
  7. You will be at a screen that looks like thisexcel3
  8. Click on Browse to search on your computer for the csv file you just created. Then click on upload and you will see this screenexcel4
  9. Now click on the Convert to Gedcom button. The conversion time will vary depending on the number of records in your CSV file. Once the conversion is complete you will see this screenexcel5
  10. Click on the button to download your Gedcom file. It will be have some random characters followed by part of your original csv filename and have a ged file extension. Save it as normal to your computer.
  11. You are now ready to import it into your Family History programme.

I have tested this file on both Ancestral Quest v14 and Family Historian v5, other users have tested on Legacy and Roots Magic. Occasionally you may get import error messages BUT so far I have not found anything in the error messages that prevents them loading into the programme properly.

 Suggestions

I suggest that you try this with a small number of records to start with, around 10. Run through the process and make sure that everything works as expected. Once you are happy with this I recommend you work in batches of 1000 at a time. This means that the uploads, conversion and download don’t take too long.

Feedback

Please let me know how you get on and if you have any suggestions for improvement. I will be  looking at adding additional functionality.