After several weeks of using RM8 I exported a gedcom and started a new RM7 database because I can edit data much more efficiently and quicker in RM7. I have been editing in this new database for about 10 days at about 8+ hours per day.
Today I was processing my DNA matches on Ancestry. For about two years I have been summarizing common DNA matches and when today I went to find my user defined DNA facts, all were missing. I have looked back at the export menu in RM8 and do not see what I could have done to prevent these facts & references from exporting. I checked the same boxes I have always checked when using RM7 to do exports. Everything appears to have gone from RM7 to RM8. Why did they not export back?
Luckily the missing DNA facts are in my initial RM8 database and the old RM7, but I see no way to add the missing information to my current database. I have made too many changes to try another export. Any suggestions? At least my situation may be a warning to to others to be careful when going back to RM7. This is a situation in which my multiple backups do no good.
I understand that you have a user defined DNA fact. If so, it should be compatible between RM7 and RM8. My understanding is that the built-in RM7 and RM8 DNA fact types are not compatible with each other, and that RM7’s built-in fact type for DNA is not even GEDCOM compatible.
So assuming that you have the same user defined DNA fact type in RM7 and RM8, the only thing I can think of is that the user defined DNA fact type was not enabled for GEDCOM export in RM8. This is an option in the Fact Type list, not an option in the GEDCOM export dialog. I wish there the GEDCOM export dialog included an “include all fact types” option or an “include everything” option or something like that, but it doesn’t. Such an option would be invaluable for a situation such as yours.
You don’t have to be going from RM8 to RM7 to run into the problem of Fact Types not being enabled for GEDCOM export. You can run into it going from RM7 to RM7 or going from RM8 to RM8. You can also run into the same problem with drag and drop because a drag and drop uses GEDCOM behind the scenes.
It’s entirely possible that your DNA fact type is also turned off in RM7 and that it being turned off in RM7 is why it was turned off in RM8. But moving your data from RM7 to RM8 wouldn’t have encountered the problem because RM8’s import from RM7 does not use GEDCOM. Instead it directly reads everything in your RM7 database without regard to the Fact Type options. Going from RM8 back to RM7 involved GEDCOM so the Fact Type options may have come into play. I would check the GEDCOM option for all your fact types, not just for DNA.
If it turns out that this is not a problem with the setting of the DNA fact in the Fact Type list, then I’m all out of ideas.
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Thank you for the helpful response. I found an older database with my user defined facts. I found I had answered “no” to include in gedcom, pub. online, group sheets, narrative reports and "yes to only lists and individual summary. Luckily my other user defined facts seem to have transferred.
I think I originally must have chosen not to export to gedcom in the Fact type list because when I share online as in WorldConnect or Geneanet, these facts would not be helpful to others not apart of my family. I never had made a gedcom of my own database and imported it back into one of my databases.
Let my problem be a warning to others not to make the same mistake.