In last month's issue of the Forum Newsletter there was an article on GEDCOM files. It was stated that GEDCOM files coming from outside of AOL may be converted to a MIME file sometime during the transfer and the receiver may need a MIME decoder program to covert the file back to a GEDCOM.

I have been the recipient of a couple of these converted GEDCOM files and, thanks to some instructions that the sender of those files sent to me, was able to covert them back to a GEDCOM file without the used of a decoder program.

These are the instructions I was given and they worked for me to pull the file into Family Tree Maker:

1) Download the *.MIM file

2) Rename the file to *.TXT

3) Edit the *.TXT file to take out any preliminary verbage so that the first line in the file is:

 

0 HEAD

 

the second line

 

1 SOUR

 

and be sure that the last line in the file is

 

0 TRLR

 

Delete any lines that do not start with a number

4) Save the file as text file

5) Rename the file to *.GED

6) Import into your genealogy program

NOTE: It is extremely important that the very first line of the file is 0 HEAD. If there is a blank line above this it will not convert properly.