Question

UNKNOWN: When I added a GEDCOM file, many names were replaced by UNKNOWN. Any idea what I did wrong???

Answer 1

I took a look at your watchlist, and the only people with the last name UNKNOWN are people named UNKNOWN UNKNOWN. Are you sure you had names for those people in your GEDCOM? There's no reason why they would be changed.

Comments

Thanks for having a look at this... Indeed they all had first name and last names that were replaced by UNKNOWN UNKNOWN. I'm trying to find if there is a system in which names were replaced and which not. For the time being I tried to erase the imported profiles, to get a fresh start with a better GEDCOM file, but not sure if this works...

PS The GEDCOM was produced from Family Tree Builder, (MyHeritage.com).

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Paul,

There are a number of odd, blank entries in your gedcom, e.g.:

0 @I30@ INDI
1 RIN MH:I30
1 _UID 5B4AE680-EA52-4750-A724-98B97E8E703B
1 SEX F
1 FAMC @F52@

That's one that ended up as "Unknown Unknown." MyHeritage does some very ... unusual ... things with gedcom formatting.

I can help you delete these particular profiles but you can't just clear out your entire import and start over.

Chris

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Paul,

On second thought, since your file was just imported and there are so many bad entries, I am doing the entire deletion for you. Everything will be cleared out. (For others who might be read this: This is an usual step and almost never done. See the GEDCOM FAQ and pages on deletion.)

If you're able to export a new file from MyHeritage, e-mail me at chris@ after you upload it and I will see if it has the names.

Chris

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Thanks a lot for deleting the whole set of profiles Chris. I will have a look again at creating a clean(er) GEDCOM file from my existing database and e-mail you when uploaded,

Greetings from Rambouillet, France