Hi, I wonder if anyone can help. I have an old family tree program called Personal Roots, ver 1.1. It's a very old DOS program and has one .exe file and the data seems to be stored in .dbf .dbt and .ntx files (namefile.dbf, namefile.dbt, fathers.ntx, mothers.ntx, persons.ntx Lname.ntx, spouses.ntx). I want to transfer the data to a more up to date family tree program but there is no export or backup function in the program and I don't know how to get the data out. I've searched on the internet for info about the old program but can't find anything. Have also searched for info about these extensions and they're possibly from a "clipper" program...? Does anyone know how I can get this data out please, there's loads of info in there and I don't want to lose it. Thanks for your help.

The dbf will very likely be a "dBase III" file which you can open in Excel and then export it top a number of common file formats. M2 If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Does this programme not have a GEDCOM or PAF export option. Most Family Tree programmes do, even old DOS ones as GEDCOM has been around for many many years. This will export the data in a format that can be read in by another Family Tree application. Stuart

Stuart - no the program doesn't have any export options, Gedcom or otherwise. M2 - bringing the .dbf file into Excel worked thank you. Now I have to work out how to get this data into another family tree program. I guess I need to read about Gedcom and see if I can convert the Excel data to Gedcom format, Stuart - any ideas? Am I right in thinking that ALL the data is in this .dbf file so I don't need to worry about the .ntx files? Bcp

You are not going to be able convert the data to GEDCOM format with Excel. The only way you are going to do it is to write a programme to read in the Dbase data and write it out again in GEDCOM format. GEDCOM is basically a text file with one data item on each line prefixed with Tag to indicate what type of data it is. This will give you some idea of what a GEDCOM file looks like. http://www.leisterpro.com/doc/Articles/GEDCOM_101.html Unless you can convert the data into some some format that the new family history file can handle like RTF of CSV, then I can see you having to enter the data by hand. I imagine that you have all the data in the DBF files. The ntx files will be indexes that wont be of much use away from the application that created them. Stuart

Right, it's me again. I think I can probaly work out how to get this stuff into a Gedcom file, but I have another problem now. I've been looking at the data in Excel and notice that some information is missing - this information was in a Memo area of the family tree program, and it hasn't been brought into the Excel file.... so I'm wondering where it's gone and how I can find it. Any ideas please? Am also still worried about any data in the .ntx files. Thanks Bcp

The DBT file is the one that contains the memo field data. The files are part of the XBASE family of programs dBase, Clipper, FoxBase, etc. If you get the right version you should be able to open the data up properly linked and then export it to more modern program. Otherwise you might have to hand associate the memo data.