How to import large file (4543) from Ancestral Quest 16 to Family Search

Marshall Noker

I have taken a small portion (about 10%) of my father's genealogy work and converted it from PAF to Ancestral Quest. Everyone is linked, most of the individuals have LDS film numbers with page and line numbers. The first RIN in my Ancestral Quest file corresponds to an individual who is documented in Family Search. The rest (except an odd one here or there added from name extractions) do not exist in Family Search.

In the next few weeks, I'll be done checking and validating these records. I want to bring them over to Family Search for others to work with and to get Temple work done. I have been told I have to bring them in one at a time. Really?

Is there some way I can bring them into Family Search by linking the one relative that is in both databases?

Kenner Tobias Hartman

I use AQ and would recommend connecting your FamilySearch account and individually syncing each individual. All you need to do is link your FamilySearch account to AQ and there will be a tree icon at the very right of every deceased individual. This will help reduce the creation of duplicate records, especially if you are working with AQ and FamilySearch side-by-side at the same time.

I would not upload a GEDCOM directly to Family Tree because as Julia Szent-Györgyi has said, "those already-existing profiles will not necessarily be connected in any way to the other existing profile(s) you've found." I haven't done this before, but I would imagine you could create duplicates (which is why I don't upload GEDCOMs). In fact, I have found duplicates from GEDCOMs uploaded by other people.

Furthermore, if you do want to upload a GEDCOM, take the route Julia Szent-Györgyi has already suggested: explore the option of uploading a genealogy by creating "a very small GEDCOM -- fewer than 100 people -- and then go to Search - Genealogies, scroll down, and click the 'Upload Your Individual Tree' button."

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Caveat: I don't use AQ.

You probably want to investigate from the AQ side. For example: https://www.ancquest.com/FamSearch/FAQS.htm

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Are you absolutely positively and completely certain that none of those thousands of people are already here? Even my until-recently-completely-unindexed Lutherans from Hungary are sporadically here, based on a relative's marriage to a Catholic or a descendant who moved to Budapest or similar.

The thing to keep in mind is that those already-existing profiles will not necessarily be connected in any way to the other existing profile(s) you've found. The collaborative Family Tree is a constant work in progress, and it's full of little twiglets where someone went partway down a rabbit hole or did what he could with what sources he found.

FamilySearch does have a tool for transferring data from a GEDCOM file to the tree, but in my opinion, it's so badly flawed that it really is better to do it all "by hand". (Even with the tool, it'd be one at a time; you'd just skip a few copy-and-paste steps, but at the cost of effectively working blindfolded.) If you want to explore this option, I suggest you create a very small GEDCOM -- fewer than 100 people -- and then go to Search - Genealogies, scroll down, and click the "Upload Your Individual Tree" button.

Marshall Noker

Thank you for your suggestions. It doesn't look like it will be as simple and nice as I'd like to have it. Oh well, at least they know we're trying.

I'll try the very small GEDCOM route when I'm ready to roll.