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From: "Geoff Hercock" <>
Subject: Size of GEDCOM file
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 23:09:55 +0100


I am a new subscriber to the list so you'll have to bear with me if this has
been covered before.

My brother and I research family history independently, and both make
additions/changes to our data on our own copies of FH. We regularly use the
Merge/Compare File function to consolidate our changes into a single
definitive file.

This works well, but I notice that each time we run the Merge/Compare, the
size of the GEDCOM file increases considerably, to the extent that we now
have a file (containing 4,300 individuals with notes, sources etc) which is
a whopping 8.7 MB!! At such a size, it is cumbersome to send as an e-mail
attachment, and my PC is even beginning to groan when opening the file.

Has anyone come across this before and is there a ready solution? How big
can one expect a GEDCOM file to grow to - I would have thought 1MB would be
quite considerable for a file of this type.

Any help would be welcome.

Geoff Hercock


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