Macfarlane Family History - Updating The Public Version

Notes For The Public Version 2, November 2021

Updating From The Old To The New Versions Of The Public Archive

There have been changes to the actual contents of 72 files between Versions 1 & 2 of the Public Archive, as follows:

However, although not too many files have had their contents changed, many more have been affected by renaming, either of themselves and/or their parent directories.  The vast majority of these are a consequence of having to rename relatively few high-level directories, mainly to shorten them but also to standardise them.  Consequently overall, the changes are sufficiently numerous that, if you were one of the few who was given early access to any public part of the archive, a systematic approach to upgrading from Version 1 to Version 2 may be desirable.

Much will depend on whether you yourself have added to or changed any of the files in Version 1.  If you are unsure of this, the creation dates of the Version 1 Archives are as below …

… so if you search your version of the archive and find files later than that, those files must have been added or updated by you.  However it's important to realise that the reverse is NOT necessarily true, because if you have copied into the archive a file created elsewhere having an older date than the above, then that won't be found by the above method, but instead you may find it by looking at the directory dates, to see if any of them suggest that the contents of a directory have been modified since the above.  See also the first list above of files that have actually been modified between V1 & V2, because if you also have modified any of these files, special care must be taken not to lose either your own modifications or those in V2.

If you yourself have changed or added files to the archive, then what method is best of the last two given below for upgrading from Version 1 to Version 2 will depend on how many files you have changed and much disk space you have.  There is a table of disk space requirements together with download links at the bottom of this page.

Method A

If you never downloaded the V1 Public Archive or the subset of it made up for Dorchester Abbey, or you are certain that you yourself have NOT changed or added any files to it, then you can just delete any old version of the archive that you have and extract the new one its place.  However, after the deletion of any V1 Archive, you will still need enough disk space to extract the V2 Archive, as given in the table below.

Method B

If you have changed or added to the archive, this method is preferred as safest, but requires most disk space:

1. Ensure that there is enough free disk space, as given in the table below, to extract the latest version of the Public Archive alongside the old version.
2. Rename the topmost directory of the old version to something other than 'Family History', say 'Family History - V1'.
3. Download and extract the V2 Main or V2 Full Public Archive.
4. Using the list given above ensure that any files that you yourself have changed or added to V1 do not have the same names as any updated files in V2, which consequently would be overwritten and their updated content lost.
5. Copy your changes over from the V1 to the V2 archive, and, after some while when you are sure that this has been done successfully, the old version can then be deleted to free up its disk space.

Method C

This method is not quite so safe but requires more moderate disk space, although it may not be suitable if you have changed many files:

1. Ensure that once V1 has been deleted there will be enough extra free disk space, as given in the table below, to extract the latest version of the Public Archive.
2. Copy out any files that you have changed within the V1 Archive directories to somewhere safe outside of the V1 Archive directory tree.
3. Delete the entire V1 Archive.
4. Download and extract the V2 Main or V2 Full Public Archive.
5. Using the list given above, ensure that any files that you copied out do not have the same names as any updated files in V2, which consequently would be overwritten when your files are copied back in, and their updated content lost.
6. Copy your changes back in to the V2 Public Archive.