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Coming from another program

Switching programs shouldn't mean retyping years of work. Every serious genealogy program can save a GEDCOM file — the universal "export my whole tree" format — and Oakbough Family reads it. The path is always the same:

  1. Export a GEDCOM from your current program (where to click is below).
  2. In Oakbough Family, create an archive (you only give it a name) and go to Settings → Data → Import GEDCOM.
  3. Take a look: your people, families, sources, notes and photo references are now readable notes in your vault.

Oakbough Family tries hard not to choke on your file. Every program adds its own little quirks to GEDCOM; the importer keeps anything it doesn't recognise safely tucked aside (and writes it back out if you ever export again) and quietly skips over the truly broken bits rather than giving up. In short: an import won't fail just because your old program got creative.

Where to click in each program

  • Family Tree Maker — File → Export → GEDCOM 5.5.1. It brings over the references to your media; copy the actual photo files into the archive's Media/ folder afterwards (its path is in Settings).
  • RootsMagic — File → Export → GEDCOM file.
  • Legacy Family Tree — File → Export → GEDCOM, and pick "GEDCOM 5.5.1".
  • Gramps — Family Trees → Export → GEDCOM (.ged). (You don't need Gramps's own XML format — the GEDCOM carries everything.)
  • Ancestry.com — Trees → Tree Settings → Export tree. Heads up: Ancestry does not put the record images in the export, so download the ones you want by hand into Media/.
  • MyHeritage — Family tree → Manage trees → Export to GEDCOM.

Once it's in

  • Open the Archive health panel (Ctrl+Q): its Quality tab points out inconsistencies your old program may have quietly let slide, Duplicates finds double entries if you've pulled research together from a few places, and Place duplicates settles the namesakes — because imported places become records of their own here, with coordinates, rather than captions on events.
  • Look into Settings → Backups and pick a folder for copies. A freshly imported tree is a good moment for the first one.
  • Got a second GEDCOM to add? Import & merge (Settings → Data) folds it in without trampling what you already have — it proposes the matches, and you decide each one.