Could you please consider the writing of a Perl script which would enable me (and many others) to convert a non standard GEDCOM file to a standard format acceptable for registration by the Personal Ancestral File system?

I use REUNION as my genealogy program, but it uses Windows based characters, whereas the standard format for genealogy data (GEDCOM) transfer uses ASCII, and a strict format that REUNION does not conform with, I have just recently found out.

GEDCOM is a simple text file, with a specific data structure. Every line has a header, consisting of a number, a space and a 4 characte standard identifier. Each set of data commences with the number 0 (zero)
The main amendments to be done are for every occurrence:
HEAL is changed to NOTE Medical:
HIST is changed to NOTE Biography:
EDUC is changed to NOTE Educated:
RESI is changed to NOTE Resided:
OCCU is changed to NOTE Occupation:

The main problem is in the following:

After each Source identifier 0 @Snnn@ SOUR, each line of the REUNION GEDCOM source data is to be modified as follows:

The first line 1 NAME data......... has to be changed to 1 TITL;

The second 1 NAME data......... has to be changed to 1 TEXT;

The third and subsequent 1 NAME data......... has to be changed to 2 CONT ( extra lines only required if more than 2 lines before the next 0 @Snnn@ SOUR;

The text file has something like 30,000 lines, a bit too many to do manually. There are 400 sources, each starting with 0 SOUR @Snnn@;

If you can assist, I would greatly appreciate it, but I will understand if you cannot.

I can send a sample GEDCOM file to examine.
My kind regards,
Joe

Townsville, Australia

Edit: chipmunk 2001-07-07

In reply to Converting GEDCOM files by Joes

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