TNG: How to import media

The ability to import and to upload media is restricted to administration privileges. Use “Import Media” if you want to transfer images to your TNG image subfolder in bulk, but not for linking to any persons or places at this time.  This might be the case with a lot of census records or image sections from a book, for example. So log in as administrator, go to Administration and click on the Media tile.  Click on the “Import” tab.  Decide on the collection to receive the images, and select a tree.  If you don’t select a tree, then the images will be visible in all trees.       Now for a bit of explanation.  You need to have the images uploaded already into your TNG site, in the media subfolder.  Usually this is done if you have an ftp file transfer account for your TNG site.  Or, you can use the “Upload Media” feature to first copy images from your home computer to your media subfolder.         One other cautionary.  You only want to import new images, not ones that you have imported before.  Otherwise, TNG will add the image again, duplicating the first set. As an example, I intentionally imported a small set of images twice.  See the results on the left, when I went to Search Media. The original two images (#1, #3) have a thumbnail image.  The second set (#2, #4), a duplicate set, does not sport a thumbnail, but shows the same file name. Not what we want.  Now I have to go back into the media edit page and manually delete the individual duplicates.     Matching ID’s from other tree applications When you import images from your other family tree applications, do the index ID numbers also come across?  If so, this would make the matching of images to persons so much easier.  Well, it depends.  Below is some reference information from the TNG author’s Wiki knowledge site. Resequencing ID’s in Family Tree Maker (FTM)

The older versions of Family Tree Maker (FTM16 and earlier) re-sequences the assigned record IDs when it goes from single digits to double digits to triple digits and so on. So an original ID of I1 will become I01 when you add the 10th person to the FTM database and I001 when you add the 100th person, and I0001 when you add the 1000th person.

 

FTM 2008 and FTM 2009 use a 5 digit numbering scheme, with I00001 assigned to the first person ID number. Thusly, number changes won’t take place with these versions until the database hits 100,000 names.

The resulting impact is that media record links will be broken in TNG when you import a new GEDCOM after the IDs passed through one of the above thresholds.

Export / Import Media Links

Only version 21 (FTM 2012) of FTM exports media links. Even the subsequent version, FTM 2014, does not. The software is designed to support building trees and to entice one to subscribe to Ancestry.com and not to create your own web site elsewhere. See Forum discussion on media export. Import of media links is also not supported in FTM, which includes FTM2009 and FTM2010. Export of a GEDcom 5.5 version file will automatically deselect the option to include path names for media files. If you have a large GEDcom file with a significant number of media attachments, it is possible to take an exported FTM file that contains media links and import this file into “The Master Genealogist” (TMG). This program has the capability to read the FTM proprietary formatted GEDcom file and not lose the media path information contained in the file. You can then export this file from TMG into another GEDcom 5.5 file that actually does contain path information that you require. Of course, you will have to set up TMG to have correct path information for media files that matches your TNG installation, etc. to make it work. I have done this procedure to recover an old FTM16 formatted file that contained a little over 1000 photos and wrote the file out to GEDcom 5.5 standard that matched my TNG site’s /photos directory convention. After import of the GEDcom file, and FTP of the photos to the /photos directory on my TNG site, I was able to run the “create thumbnails” option under the media section for all photos that do not currently have thumbnails. This correctly populated each photo with it’s appropriate thumbnail and saved me days of work. The import process for TMG took almost a full night to run, but export was very quick. TMG is not a free product, but since this was a once only scenario, the downloaded trial version worked fine for me. I would have no hesitation on purchasing the full version just to have the “import FTM files” capabilities in case other relatives sent me additional files in the future….. Note: the Wiki article also has sections on exporting GEDCOM from Legacy, Personal Ancestral File (PAF), Family Historian and The Master Genealogist (TMG).