Export spreadsheet from an obsolete program

Discussion in 'Software' started by Astyanax, Aug 4, 2013.

  1. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    I have an obsolete genealogy program called "My Tree" into which I have placed a lot of family data. I can view a spreadsheet that contains all the data I have entered for each person, but I cannot print it or open it in Excel or export it to any other spreadsheet I can find. Anyone have a solution? Thanks.
     
  2. usafveteran

    usafveteran MajorGeek

    I don't get this. It seems contradictory. You say you can view a spreadsheet containing the data. Is that in Excel?

    Do you have a spreadsheet program other than Excel?

    Does "My Tree" have any export options? What are they? Is CSV one of them? If so, export to a CSV file. Excel can open a CSV file.
     
  3. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    I can view the info in the "My Tree" program. There is no export option in this program. I do have Open Office spreadsheet as well as Excel, but without a way to export the data I am stumped.
     
  4. usafveteran

    usafveteran MajorGeek

    Who made the "My Tree" program? Is the "My Tree" program actually a program installed on your computer or is it a website? If it's an installed program, does the company have a website?
     
  5. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    The program was made by a company that no longer exists. It was produced by "Digital Systems Research" and copyrighted by Family Technologies in 1994. All a dead end. I suspect there is a way to get inside the program to get the data, but I do't know how.

    The program is not a website. It is installed on my computer.

    Is there any hope?
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2013
  6. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    Do you by any chance still have the installation file or disk for this program? And if so, which version of Windows did it run on?
     
  7. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    I gavethe disk to a friend and he lost it. I'm pretty sure it was Windows 3, just before Windows 95, but I'm not sure. It might have been Windows 95. It is ow running ok on Windows Vista.
     
  8. usafveteran

    usafveteran MajorGeek

    Does the Print command provide any options for output other than paper? Any print to file option? Does the program have a Save As command? If so, does it allow saving a file to various formats?
     
  9. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    Well you won't be the only person who uses/used it but without it you will struggle to go beyond Vista without losing all your work. Sign up to as many public forums as possible and make an appeal. Can't see what else you can do unless someone can find a way to read your data files.
     
  10. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    No, none of the above. It really is a primitive program that has none of the features we would expect today. In some way, that's why I think it would be easy to get into and extract the data. I just need someone to tell me how to do it.
     
  11. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    I'm probably one of the last users that hasn't upgraded to something else. I just don't want to input all that data agai if I don't have to. But thanks for your help.
     
  12. usafveteran

    usafveteran MajorGeek

    Here's a possible solution: https://www.backupmytree.com/. It's a free service. I think I'd give it a try. They say "All of the file formats created by popular family tree software packages are supported'.
     
  13. Ewen

    Ewen Corporal

    It would also help if we knew the file extension ie: filename.???
     
  14. plodr

    plodr Major Geek Super Extraordinaire

  15. foogoo

    foogoo Major "foogoo" Geek

    While .tre might be their proprietary format, can you open it is notepad or winhex? Maybe screen scape it with ABBYY Screen Shot Reader? You might not be able to get the data out clean, but maybe is some form you can work with.
    For the heck of it (make a copy of the file first) then change the extension and try to open it.. like MDB, ect..

    What are some of the files that progran installs? Ususally some of the dlls etc. will give you a cluse of the database program they used (if they actually used one) like Firebird, Access, or SQL.
     
  16. IBleed4Thee

    IBleed4Thee Private First Class

    I was lurking and saw this post.

    You might be able to export those files to Ancestry.com. Worth a try to check it out. It does have a file export options for several programs.
     
  17. rmyere

    rmyere Private E-2

    If I recall, I believe that .tre files can be read and opened by notepad....But you want to use this in another program i presume, or have some sort of real database....so..


    Are there any options that say GEDCOM??? Such as File>GEDCOM>export or something like that?
     
  18. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    It is true that the .tre file can be opened in notepad, but the data is all mixed up and not really useable. I've looked for some way export to gedcom, but there are no export features at all in this program. But thanks for your suggestion anyway.
     
  19. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    I never thought of Ancestry.com for a solution. I'll give it a try. Thanks.
     
  20. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    I tried changing the file extension to .mdb and .dbf on a copy of the .tre file, but could not open it in any program I have.
    I looked for .dll files and only found four: PRINTB.DLL, APIGUIDE.DLL, CUSTCTRL.DLL, and IMAGE.DLL. I opened them in Notepad and didn't find any hint of what DB program was used to create "MY Tree".
    But thanks for the suggestions. Any more?
     
  21. usafveteran

    usafveteran MajorGeek

    By now, I imagine you agree you're probably facing a rebuild of your family tree in a some newer genealogy program or perhaps on a genealogy website. So, if that's your ultimate decision, I have a suggestion that might make that a bit easier. Install a PDF converter such as doPDF and "print" the output from your old program to a PDF file. Then, you open that file and copy and paste from it. This might be easier than re-typing all entries into a re-created family tree.

    When a PDF converter such as doPDF is installed, it will appear in your system as a "printer" and you can select it as the "printer" when printing from any application. What this does, then, is "print" the output to a PDF file.
     
  22. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    That's an excellent suggestion, and I will act on it as soon as I get a bit of time to do the work. I want to thank you and all the other members of this forum for your questions, comments and suggestions that have convinced me that there is no easy way out of this for me, and that it's a waste of time to keep looking for one. Thanks again to everyone.
     
  23. brownizs

    brownizs MajorGeek

    cutepdf is also a good lightweight program, for printing to a pdf file. I know the program you are talking about. My father had bought the same one around that time.

    I have found a lot of our family tree for my family, out on ancestry.com, that a distant relative had uploaded some time back.
     
  24. webmayo

    webmayo Private E-2

    Did you ever sort this out? If not, I may be able to help you. There would be no charge involved.
    I recently solved a similar problem for someone trying to get data out of 'GreatFamily' which is also obsolete.
     
  25. plodr

    plodr Major Geek Super Extraordinaire

    Unfortunately, Astyanax, has not been here since August 17, 2013 so will not see your post.
     
  26. Astyanax

    Astyanax Private E-2

    Webmayo: I just read your message from May 14. I would be interested in hearing more. Please let me know how to learn more. Thanks. Sorry to be so late in replying.
     
  27. webmayo

    webmayo Private E-2

    I tried to pm you, but it seems I'm not allowed until I post 50+ times (that's not going to happen).
    Please contact me directly at <snip>
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 9, 2014
  28. LauraR

    LauraR MajorGeeks Super-Duper Administrator Staff Member

    I have deleted the email posted by webmayo. I would highly recommend NOT contacting this user if you have received an email notification regarding their post, as they just registered here and we have no idea who they are.

    Major Geeks would recommend NEVER contacting anyone via email solicitation on forums unless you trust them as an individual or a company.

    @webmayo, please do not post your email again. We also do not allow advertizing or promotion of products of any sort on this site, so I hope that was not your intent.
     
  29. webmayo

    webmayo Private E-2

    I am a retired software developer. I have no need to advertise. I have nothing to sell. I have helped many people across the planet to recover data, and have never asked for, or received a single cent.

    The email address I used is already plastered across the internet, so it was of no importance that I used it.
    The reason I had to use the email address was because I could not pm.
    Expecting me to post 50+ times before I can help someone is a joke.

    If Astyanax still wants me to help, he will probably find me by searching my profile details. (or are you going to block them too?)

    This will be my last post here. I'm gone.
     
  30. LauraR

    LauraR MajorGeeks Super-Duper Administrator Staff Member

    That statement alone is laughable. We do NOT expect you to post 50+ times before you can help. This is a help forum. What we expect is that those who are willing to volunteer their expertise respond to questions in the form of posts. There is zero need for you to help via PM or email.

    You claim you have no need to advertise, yet you found a year old post on a forum you have never been on, put a link in your profile for a product, and ask someone to trust a stranger and personally email you. If you had no need of advertising, you would have tried to help him by posting on our forums which is how we do things here.

    There is zero need for you to private message anyone in order to help. Nor is it ever recommended to anyone to contact people online via email for help. That is how people get malware on their systems. An email plastered all over the internet means nothing.

    So again, to the OP...I would not recommend contacting anyone via email who looks for posts on random forums and asks the user to contact them rather than helping out in the open...on the forum they are posting in.
     
  31. webmayo

    webmayo Private E-2

    If you don't want anyone to find old posts, you should remove them. As it turns out the person who posted still needs help.
    It is not possible to recover data for someone via your forum. direct contact is needed.

    I did not put a link to a 'product' in my profile. Your profile form has a field that asked for my home page. That is what I put there.
    If you take the trouble to look, you will see my website has absolutely nothing for sale, and there is no advertising on my website.
     
  32. LauraR

    LauraR MajorGeeks Super-Duper Administrator Staff Member

    We have no problem with people posting in old threads as long as its relevant, which is why we don't close them as some forums do.

    Basically, your post came off as spam. If that wasn't the intent, that's great. Our main goal is to help the person asking the question....on our forums. As stated, we do not allow emails to be posted on here...nor do we encourage help via private messaging.

    I'm not going to continue to argue with you. If you would like to still help the person by doing so through posting in their help thread, that is wonderful. I'm sure they would appreciate it.
     
  33. plodr

    plodr Major Geek Super Extraordinaire

    And yet we have success stories of this being possible via the forum.
     
  34. DOA

    DOA MG's Loki

    And now for something totally different..

    Capture each tree and partial tree in the program with snipping tool
    Put it all in a picture
    OCR it and put it in Word
    Sort out the data into "columns" or "fields", commas between them. Lot of cut and paste, I know.
    Check all the data
    Open Excel or make an Access database
    Import the data

    I did a 15K parts database this way and it took me a week. That is about three months faster than typing it all in.
     

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