Linux Ubuntu Gramps v.5.1.6. In previous versions of Gramps when I exported a gedcom from Ancestry and imported it into Gramps I would get the Ancestry tags as a numerical string. Once I had identified the corresponding tag in Ancestry and changed the description in Gramps I had useful tags. These tags no longer seem to be being imported at all. Has Ancestry changed the content of the gedcom file or is Gramps discarding this information on import?
Are you sure about that workflow? (For workflows that are used repeatedly but only once in a blue moon, you might want to document the process in a Note and attach it to a placeholder âGramps, workflowsâ person. The 1st line of the Note should be a terse summary.)
When Gramps imports a GEDCOM and doesnât recognize the tag, it throws a warning and creates a Note with the unrecognized tag data. See Import from another genealogy program in the wiki.
That allows users to use SuperTool scripts and Filters to post-process the data.
That said, I vaguely recollect addons that import Acncestry data. (As I avoid Ancestry, they donât make a lasting memory.) Iâll look around a bit.
Can you tell a little more about those tags? I have a tree on Ancestry, where I often process hints from free sources like the 1950 US census, but I donât use tags on the site, so I have no idea how they are exported.
I need to add, that Ancestry GEDCOMs are quite messy, and they donât have links to source media, like scans of those censuses. Thatâs why I often use RootsMagic to download my tree from there, with media. And that program exports much better GEDCOM files than Ancestry.
As of version 2022.08 of their exporter they use _MTTAG to export their tags. Enumerated and custom tags are the last items in the export.
A sample custom tag:
0 @T116067@ _MTTAG
1 NAME Revolutionary War
1 NOTE Revolutionary War participant
A sample enumerated tag:
0 @T14@ _MTTAG
1 NAME Immigrant
1 RIN 14
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OK, thanks. This suggests that older exports used another tag. Is that right? And if so, do you know what that was? I never add tags on Ancestry myself, so Iâve never seen them in exports either, but if we supported the old tag in 5.1, itâll probably be quite easy to add support for the new one.
In Nov 2024 I raised a similar enhancement request re importing tags from Ancestry. Tags are a fairly recent addition to Ancestry and it seems that the Gramps import recognises them as an event with Type of _MTTAG and a description of @Tnn@ where nn is a number between 1 and 999999. The problem with this is that the user must first identify what this description matches to in Ancestry, and since they are events it is not possible to use them as tags unless you are prepared to merge each of the events, and since events can only be merged one by one⌠you see the issue.
Would it be possible to modify the GEDCOM import code to recognise these âeventsâ not as events but as Gramps tags? If not, could we have a gramplet which would allow multiple merges of events of type _MTTAG and description begins with @?
Please generate a sample Ancestry GEDCOM export and paste it as text here.
A sample of a single family (3 people: mother/father/child) should be a good starting point. If Ancestry can tag more than people (families, places, sources, notes, events), samples of that should be in that exported family. And one incidence of a person with 2 tags and another that shares a tag.
Ancestry Tagged people sample GEDCOM
0 HEAD
1 SUBM @SUBM1@
1 SOUR Ancestry.com Family Trees
2 NAME Ancestry.com Member Trees
2 VERS 2024.12
2 _TREE Doe Family Tree
3 RIN 202966999
3 _ENV prd
2 CORP Ancestry.com
3 PHON 801-705-7000
3 WWW www.ancestry.com
3 ADDR 1300 West Traverse Parkway
4 CONT Lehi, UT 84043
4 CONT USA
1 DATE 3 Mar 2025
2 TIME 22:08:49
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5.1
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 CHAR UTF-8
0 @SUBM1@ SUBM
1 NAME Ancestry.com Member Trees Submitter
0 @I312653330565@ INDI
1 NAME Jane /Doe/
2 GIVN Jane
2 SURN Doe
1 SEX F
1 FAMC @F1@
1 BIRT
2 DATE 15/05/1950
2 PLAC London, England
1 _MTTAG @T7@
0 @I312653330566@ INDI
1 NAME John /Doe/
2 GIVN John
2 SURN Doe
1 SEX M
1 FAMS @F1@
1 BIRT
2 DATE 25/09/1930
2 PLAC London, England
1 _MTTAG @T184632@
1 _MTTAG @T16@
0 @I312653330637@ INDI
1 NAME Mary /Deare/
2 GIVN Mary
2 SURN Deare
1 SEX F
1 FAMS @F1@
1 BIRT
2 DATE 10/07/1935
2 PLAC London, England
1 _MTTAG @T184632@
0 @F1@ FAM
1 HUSB @I312653330566@
1 WIFE @I312653330637@
1 CHIL @I312653330565@
0 @T7@ _MTTAG
1 NAME Died Young
1 RIN 7
1 _VISI 1
1 _MTCAT @C4@
0 @T184632@ _MTTAG
1 NAME Direct ancestor
1 _VISI 1
1 _MTCAT @C1@
0 @T16@ _MTTAG
1 NAME Military Service
1 RIN 16
1 _VISI 1
1 _MTCAT @C3@
0 @C4@ _MTCAT
1 NAME Relationship
1 RIN 4
0 @C1@ _MTCAT
1 NAME Custom
1 RIN 1
0 @C3@ _MTCAT
1 NAME Reference
1 RIN 3
0 TRLR
GEDCOM.pdf (29.0 KB)
In the examples provided, the tag âdirect ancestorâ is one custom-generated by the user, and the tags âmilitary serviceâ and âdied youngâ are tags in Ancestryâs existing library.
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Looking at the GEDCOM, it appears the plain text translations of the _MTTAGs are exported at the end of the file, e.g. â0 @T184632@ _MTTAG
1 NAME Direct ancestorâ so it should be possible to map these into GRAMPS in a user-friendly manner.
Can easily done with MultiMergeGramplet after filtering events by type and description.