How to import select files from Ancestry into Family Search

John Wunsch

I have a shared Ancestry Tree with my cousin, and I have my own Family Search Tree. How can I import select family lines into Family Search from Ancestry, and Vice Versa? If I just copy the GEDCOM it wipes out what I already have. It will take an extremely long time to manually copy the information and retype it from one to the other. Is there an automated process to do what I need?

Thanks,

John Wunsch

genthusiast

Simplest answer: use a third-party tree management solution with tree sync capability.

1. Download your ancestry GEDCOM and import it into the solution.

2. Sync the selected families/records into FamilySearch (there is a somewhat automated process).

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Unless you're talking about the Genealogies section, you're badly mistaken: you do not have "your own Family Search Tree", because it's all one, shared tree. The goal is one and only one profile per deceased person, and to achieve that, anyone can edit nearly anything, after signing in. (Yes, you can edit my relatives, and vice versa.)

As far as I know, the Genealogies section does not limit you to one upload per account, or at any rate, it offers me the opportunity to upload another file. Therefore, if you're actually talking about that part of FS -- which is essentially a publicly-viewable cloud backup service for genealogy files -- then you can add to it from Ancestry or anywhere else that offers GEDCOM files without any further steps being needed.

Despite being the originator of the standard, FS does not offer GEDCOM downloads: in order to transfer data from the collaborative tree to another platform, you need to use third-party software, as genthusiast said. There are multiple programs that can synchronize with FS; you can find them in the Solutions Gallery.

For the other direction, things get complicated, due to the collaborative nature of the tree, and due to faults of the tools offered. In my opinion, the worst option is FS's own compare-and-add process, which they tack on to the Genealogies upload in such a way as to cause many people to misunderstand what's going on, thereby causing much damage to the Tree. However, even going in with full understanding, the tool is unsuited to its purpose, because it doesn't show you everything you need to see to make good decisions. It's like working blindfolded, with a six-year-old to read you what's on the screen. The synchronization features of the above-mentioned third-party applications are at least marginally better, but you still need to be careful.

However, again in my opinion, the best way to update the collaborative tree is manually, one profile at a time. To avoid re-typing, you can make copious use of your device's copy-and-paste capabilities.