Ancestry.com to FS
I have 2500 names in my Ancestry.com tree. Since I can not import data, hat is value of starting a new tree in FamilySearch.
Answers
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You would not be starting a new tree in FamilySearch, as there is only one, shared tree here. What's more, it is highly likely that well over half of those 2500 people already have profiles on it. (If you're LDS, or have family that is, the proportion is likely closer to 100%.)
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Edit: It looks like someone already beat me to answering--I guess that's what I get for leaving to eat in the middle of writing my response! I've removed some of the more redundant information.
In Ancestry, all users have their own tree(s). In FamilySearch, everyone shares the same global tree. A change made by one user will affect all users. While this does mean that someone could potentially mess things up, I think it is a more than reasonable tradeoff when considering that people can also fix those errors. A lot of would-be errors can be fixed through careful collaboration, which you don't see on most other sites. On Ancestry, if you make a mistake, the mistake stays unless you yourself notice later.
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JohnHarris1247 I have multiple trees in Ancestry, yet I also keep up all the information in FamilySearch. I have actually "bumped" into more relatives in FamilySearch than Ancestry. Because the FamilySearch tree is a one world tree, others are working on your ancestors. If you stick to the rule of sourcing what you do, you will have less probability of working at odds with someone. I hear stories of people going back and forth with putting parents and removing parents because they disagree. Myself, I never remove anyone else's work, but I will add comments to it and/or add contradicting information with comments that it is an alternative. (Only one exception is a relative of mine who gets a lot of things wrong and I would never want to hurt her feelings by commenting on her stuff, so I leave it for others to fix.)
I have an ancestor in one line whose information has been a free for all for quite a while now. He lived in the 1600s and was the first of that line to come to the new world. At one point he was recorded to have lived for 150 years but that got fixed. I stay out of the fray, mostly. I upload the images I have of his land records and church affiliation, but mostly I hope my descendants squabble over me that way 400 years from now. It will mean I left a legacy that others found.
Finally, one capability FamilySearch adds is the ability to connect your ancestors to their family friends, acquaintances, business partners, distant relatives, enslaved people or other not quite understood relationships that you have evidence of. In FamilySearch, a spinster multiple great aunt of mine is connected to a young man's record who died in the Civil War. Why? She had a love poem from him written by hand and dated a year before his death. It eventually had a black ribbon glued to the edges of the page, and has come down to me. She never married, and now, thanks to the FS world tree, his family has the ability to see that he possibly had a love interest. I've tagged all my grandmother's fellow nursing school graduates with a photo of their graduation program and added the occupation nurse to their records. The whole class of 1922 was listed in the program I inherited. You can't really do that stuff in Ancestry and I love being able to do that here.
If you believe you should remove other people's work if you don't agree with it, rather than debate the alternatives, then expect trouble to eventually seek you out. If you think your lines should be "your tree" then perhaps the world tree is not for you. Not everyone can work in a collaborative environment. If you can, though, it is a great augmentation to Ancestry.
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I have done all my family tree work in Ancestry. The value for me in transferring some of that work to Family Search was to share my discoveries with a wider audience. In particular I was able to correctly identify my maternal grandfather and his parents. This was only possible with DNA connections (using Ancestry DNA results) and documents which were not on the public record and not discoverable by any searches. I felt that this information belongs in a world wide shared family tree.
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Apparently, I do not understand how to use the FS tree because I am used to following the hints found in Ancestry. I had to begin a new tree in FS instead of importing a Gedcom file. As I added my parents, grand, and children, I awaited some notice that connected me to new info, but got nothing. What am I doing wrong?
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@JohnHarris1247, the system will only find matches to profiles that are marked deceased, and sometimes, you inadvertently end up creating duplicates, because it's not until the relationships are entered that people start being recognizable. And unlike Ancestry, FS will not send you any messages or notifications about possible duplicates. You have to find them by looking at profiles or at one of the tree/chart views.
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@JohnHarris1247 you could actually create a GEDCOM file from your Ancestry account then upload it on FamilySearch (Search menu, then select Genealogies) for comparison with what is already on FamilyTree.
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Ottley BQ, thanks for this answer. I do not see a way to upload my GEDCOM from Ancestry to FS. That is the reason for my initial question of relevance. I have searched the how-to and found no reference to uploading GEDCOM to FamilySearch. Please tell me how to do this.
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I have now uploaded the GEDCOM from Ancestry.com named Our Tree. However, I cannot determine how to add the entries from Our Trr to the Family Tree in Family Search from the instructions. I think my long-term use of Ancestry blocks my ability to understand FS, which seems very different and blocks Living people from the tree. How can I learn to connect the two trees, including Living and deceased people?
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@JohnHarris1247, as Ottley BQ wrote, you start at Search - Genealogies. Scroll down to the bottom section and click the "Upload Your Individual Tree" button.
Note that while there is a compare-and-add process offered after upload, I highly disrecommend its use. Its comparison algorithm is faulty, giving large numbers of both false positives and false negatives, and the "add" screens simply do not show you the information you need in order to make good decisions. It is much, much better (and faster, in the long run) to simply open the file as-is in Genealogies, make your own comparison to what's already in the Family Tree, and use simple copy-and-paste to add any new information.
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