Moving / Copying Families from Ancestry to FS
Hi Everyone. My topic for Sunday's Ward FH Workshop is to help people get their families over to FamilySearch from Ancestry. Sadly I know quite a few people who find it easier to work in Ancestry and hence they have much more information there than on FS. Especially people starting out with Family History. I realise most likely the information is actually available both places so I don't want them to introduce heaps of duplicates. I am looking for instructions on the easiest way to import into or export to Family Search. Myself I always start with FamilySearch and then update Ancestry when I get time. So I am comfortable with going that direction but other than moving fields across where people are already connected, I am not sure if there is a fast way of getting information TO Family Search. Did some googling but so far not getting the right answers hence wondering if anyone here has come across an easy to follow video or simple instructions. Of course my aim is to get others to work the same way, start in FamilySearch and then copy across to the other partner sites. Hopefully with the workshops we are having, more people will become comfortable with FamilySearch in the future. I am at home with computers but a lot of others aren't.
Answers
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I am not a fan of Ancestry but do love RootsMagic. This may be a bit radical but if you exported a GEDCOM file from Ancestry, loaded RootsMagic (the free "Essentials" version works well) then import the GEDCOM file. RootsMagic is designed to interchange data with FamilySearch. It also produces excellent reports and is easy to find your way around your family tree. I have written some notes that I use in classes. You are welcome to them.
Mervyn J Buckingham
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Thanks @BuckinghamMervyn BuckinghamMervyn I started using Rootsmagic (switched from Ancestral Quest) a couple of months ago and this is where I hope to control all the various sites from for my own research (once I have brought all my databases under control lol ). I did share this with the Ward members but was reluctant to add an additional step to the process for those who are struggling with things as it is. I love the FamilySearch Central in Rootsmagic. Still working my way through cleaning up all my data. In my case, most of my research helps come from MyHeritage. All my ancestors are German (I was born there too) and they seem to be more attracted to MyHeritage than Ancestry. I made a mistake when I first loaded Rootsmagic. I should have made sure my ancestry file was uptodate then loaded that into Rootsmagic but instead I loaded AncestralQuest so now I don't seem to be able to link to Ancestry. Might be because I am running it on a MAC.
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If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you have access to a quick transfer of data from Ancestry to FamilySearch and vise versa. You must have a tree in both FamilySearch and Ancestry. The person you want to transfer information about must be in both trees - At least Ancestry. You can add a person from the Ancestry Tree. Put any of the green shaky leaves hints in Ancestry. Then click on the tree icon in the upper right side. It will be white or grey if you have not connected that person with FamilySearch.
- Connect with FamilySearch (be sure you check the one with the correct ID number
- Then a symbol will appear next to the tree
- Click on the tree again and compare with FamilySearch You can move over any information you want to FamilySearch and from FamilySearch to Ancestry. Boxes appear on Ancestry - on the left is FamilySearch and on the right is Ancestry.
- You can also add additional generations to Ancestry from FamilySearch but only to the end of line person. Open that person up, click on the tree and choose add additional family. Children do not automatically come over. You have to choose to add one at a time.
Hope this helps.
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Be aware that once the FHCs open back up, they are all authorized to have a free copy of RootsMagic on each of their computers. Anyone (member of our Church or not) can use the FHC of course, and therefore make use of RootsMagic via a USB thumb drive to keep their own data (NOT saved on the FHC computers, of course). If RootsMagic isn't already installed (and visibly available) on your FHC computers, talk with your FHC leader about downloading and installing it. S/he just needs to log in as administrator and use the FHC Application Finder to install it. (There are other programs there as well, including Ancestral Quest as I recall.)
-- Chris
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@Chris Schmink That would be me in our FHC. Thanks for that. I will make sure it's installed for people. Also must try the USB thumb drive option to back up my own file
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@Patricia Ann Sullivan Henshaw-Grow Thanks for this. I will test it out. My problem is I have far more in FS than Ancestry and so I am good at loading up to 4 gens and then matching against Family Search and other options in Ancestry. Never gone the other way from Ancestry to FS.
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@Patricia Ann Sullivan Henshaw-Grow Hi again. I have just tried this twice. I added a person to Ancestry who was not yet in Family Search (compliments of cousins in MyHeritage). I tried this earlier helping a friend online. He added the person who was not found on Family Search and then sat there with a never ending hour glass waiting for it to finish. In the end we aborted the task and I told him I would practice this myself. Which I now did it and am getting the same never ending circle telling me to please wait. I was able to match with FS and do other options to link etc but this adding seems to hang. I will pass on to Ancestry and to FS as a potential issue for now. Hopefully it will be fixed by Sunday when I have my zoom session 😃 .... ok 10 minutes later, I clicked the x to close the box and then I went to Family Search and lo and behold the record had been inserted so the process just does not feed back to Ancestry that it has been completed.
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We purchased a 10 USB thumb drives on Amazon for about $29.95 (plus tax with free shipping), so that works out to about $3.00 per drive. We make them available to FHC visitors at cost (an even $3.00). I see them not just as back up, but as a way for those that don't have computers at home to be able to do some of their work on the FHC computers, save the data, and then bring it back with them the next time they come. We quickly sold out of the first batch of USB thumb drives, and ordered a 2nd batch (we test each one when they come in to make sure they all work). People seem to love the idea of using them once they catch on, plus you can't buy a USB thumb drive locally for anywhere NEAR $3.00, so it's a real help to FHC users.
-- Chris
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it is important not to exclude using Ancestry, you may lose access to very great records that are proprietary to them, just as FamilySearch and MyHeritage and FindmyPast all have proprietary information.
you Already have responses above, that doing a GedCom file will be the easiest. But.....when and if you do it this way, you are risking uploading a ton of duplicates! I suggest using software. I am a Family Tree Maker user, but teach RootsMagic at BYUI. So if you need help, don’t hesitate. You will want to do this transfer in small chunks, maybe 4 generations at a time. Go through and fix any duplicates and records, and then....,do the next batch.
Please be aware, transferring in the names and dates from a Gedcom will not transfer documents and files from one to the other. (Remember the proprietary rule).
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This is a great answer, similar to what I would write. Gedcom transfers create duplicates (because sometimes there are enough differences that it does not find the duplicate to match with) and should be discouraged but one by one matching from RootsMagic or Ancestry like described by another contributer is best systems to use.
Also your point about sources not transferring in Gedcoms is important to know as you want all the info shared so it has the sources and documents to support the information provided.
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I am so glad that transferring data from Ancestry or any other FH program directly into Family Search is difficult to impossible. A great deal of time is spent sourcing and cleaning up duplicates and I appreciate FS not encouraging this. Anyone can have a 3rd party program and keep their own files but since FS is an amazing free gift and resource to the world, some of us like to keep the records as clean as possible. I am constantly asked "why has someone messed up my family file in FS?" It is not the place to "dump" your thousand-names family tree. The basic 3rd party programs are free and work very well with FS
https://www.familytreebuilder.com/download
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Echo comments about problems. Just because it is in Ancestry (especially, it seems) does not mean it is correct. Many Ancestry (and others) files are just copied and without source data. When importing Gedcom, you will overwrite and wipe out sources, leaving "GEDCOM DATA" as the reason why it is correct. You will create many duplicates. Please take the time to check the source, FS has enough inaccuracies as it is. Easiest is not always best!
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Thanks everyone for all your tips. I too have no interest in polluting FS with duplicates my aim was simply to show people who find ancestry easier to use how they can then make sure the global tree is updated with information that they have gathered and checked. The people logging in to our FH workshops are all church members and their main aim is to make sure ordinances can be done for their ancestors. I did stress during my tutorial that nobody would want to load bulk data into FS as it would create huge numbers of duplicates. I had to contact both ancestry and FamilySearch over the last few days as the link is usually not working at the moment. They replicated the issues I was having and this is all due to the extreme amount of traffic between the two systems at the moment. In my search for instructions on how the link works I found an excellent book which gives very simple step by step instructions on how all the FamilySearch options in Ancestry work. I could have just run the course by showing this book
Anyway I contacted the author and he gave permission to use images from the book which I could not create myself due to the link not working most of the time during the period I was creating the tutorial. I recommend the book to any church member starting out with Ancestry and Family Search. Many of us use the Partner sites because of DNA matches with other family members and we do find information there we can’t currently find in FamilySearch. Many of my cousins are using MyHeritage which seems to be more popular in Germany than Ancestry. Here is the name of the book and author for those interested for their ward members: “Ancestry for Latter Day Saints” by Jim Mosher. 0 -
Sorry if my question upset you. I was not trying to show people how to DUMP their unchecked data into FS as we all don’t want more duplicates than we are already dealing with. I was simply trying to encourage ward members to not be afraid of FS and if that means showing them how to connect their ancestors which they have already found in Ancestry to FS using the tools available then I can’t see any harm in training people using these options.
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@XtieHere XtieHere Thanks for your reply. In my tutorial I focused on teaching people how to use the tools already available via Ancestry to connect with FS and add records either way. I was simply looking here if there was already a set of slides or YouTube that meant I would not be reinventing the wheel as I myself have not worked much with Ancestry in the past. Most of the help I get is from MyHeritage where there seem to be more German people than in Ancestry. At least those related to me. I recently installed Rootsmagic and that works very well and next week we are going to look at Rootsmagic and how it works with FS and other sites. Thanks for your offer of help. I may get back to you
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@Chris Schmink Thanks Chris. Will see what they cost here in Australia and order a few
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@BowersSharonMarchant1 BowersSharonMarchant1 Thanks for the reminder! I'm personally very bothered by the over-reliance by some members on Ordinances Ready (especially youth with the support of their leaders in order to have a great temple trip). People don't seem to understand that those aren't checked by anyone at FamilySearch - just (perhaps) by the person that originally entered the individual into FamilySearch. Many people don't realize how easy it is to have a same-named person nearby both in location as well as age, yet potentially not even be related (my great uncle Melvin J. Quinn had someone born literally just blocks away, six days later, in West Orange, NJ, entered into Ancestry instead of my real great uncle who was born in Orange, NJ, just six days earlier). I understand the "appearance" of being the same person on first glance, but there were some clues that an observant person should have noticed that would have cast serious doubt on it being the same Melvin J. Quinn. Yet had that been in FamilySearch, someone may have done ordinance work for the wrong fellow instead of my great uncle. Fortunately, I found it in time, made plenty of notes in FamilySearch about the fact that there were two people born blocks apart in different municipalities with a similar name, only six days apart. So I'm really big on sourcing data and checking the details in real sources (census records for addresses as well as correct family member names in the family, birth certificates for proper dates and parents' names, etc.).
--Chris
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@Chris Schmink, that is so true. An ancestor of mine with a combination of very unusual given names was born in the same parish as another child by the same exact name. It turned out that they weren't even related; both were named after a highly esteemed man in the parish, and only one of the children was related to him--but because of the extremely unusual name and the close birth dates, someone had mistakenly added the other child into the tree rather than my actual ancestor. The problem there is that if we assume a family link is correct, we continue down a line that isn't even ours.
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@Charlotte Noelle Champenois Has happened to me before too that I discovered later on, my ancestor didn’t belong into the family he ended up in.
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I was using Ancestry long before it was free or before Family Search Family Tree. I love Ancestry. The problem is that when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Ancestry started working together they didn't teach us about the power of the little tree at the top of the page on our members only Ancestry. There you can connect an individual on Ancestry to the one on Family Search, compare them, move information from one to the other, go to the individual's Family Search page, and even connect or add his relatives to Ancestry. What you can do in Ancestry is try things and see if they bring out documents. If you make a mistake you can change it until you are sure it is right. After it is well documented then you can move it to Family Search. Each person should do what is best for their way of working. Correct results are what counts. Ancestry isn't as scary as it sounds.
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@Jacklyn Fletcher1 No argument with you that Ancestry is powerful and useful. My problem has been more with people who are reluctant to learn FamilySearch because they are used to Ancestry. My lesson was all about the green tree symbol and what it can and can't do but unfortunately at the moment it doesn't work at all
Not sure if that is region specific but all we get when trying to connect is that we need to first sign on. I think I have re-signed on thousands of times by now and still only occasionally will one of the options work. I managed to get into comparing side by side and that worked until I hit save when it bit the dust. Then I tried adding a person to FamilySearch and the system hung for ages but when I later checked FamilySearch the person had been added. When I click on adding family members to Ancestry it simply goes to the you need to sign in screen and then does nothing. As my little tree is green, it is obvious I am already signed in. The only option which seems to work without a glitch is "view this person in FamilySearch". I have reported both to FamilySearch and Ancestry and FamilySearch were able to recreate the issue but are all still working on it. They believe it is the exceptional traffic at the moment which is causing the problem between the handshaking. This was last week so I have just checked again but ... same problem. Can't get the link to work. 0 -
I have the same problem. I just do something else while it spins then come back and refresh the screen. That usually works. This is a problem when you are teaching a class. I hope this will ease as people return to work.
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@Jacklyn Fletcher1 me culpa ... well I found out now what was wrong with the example I used to add 4 generations. After answering above, I went back to give it another try. Then I decided to view the same ancestor in FamilySearch and bingo ... it opened up the record and told me this was deleted due to a merge (probably one I had done) and hence no longer valid. Feeling rather silly, I then unlinked this ancestor and relinked to the current version of him and presto ... I could now do all I wanted including adding 4 generations to the Ancestry Tree. How embarrassing this is LOL. Think I best let FamilySearch and Ancestry know that this issue was not due to excessive traffic. But ... maybe they can simply return a message stating that the ancestor has been deleted from FamilySearch?
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@Jacklyn Fletcher1 Not certain because I'm not "inside" either FamilySearch or Ancestry, but I suspect the reason "they didn't teach us about the power of the little tree at the top of the page" is likely to be because each has both a relationship to protect with each other, as well as to protect their own position. In Ancestry's case, they're a legitimate for-profit business, and most likely didn't want to easily "give away" any business by even advertising a way to move from Ancestry to another on line "tree" service. And in FamilySearch's case, it would not have looked good giving the appearance that they were trying to "lure" business away from Ancestry.
Each has their own strengths in the form of proprietary databases of information, and both have sharing agreements with each other that have likely been carefully negotiated (such as free access to Ancestry within a Family History Center or a FamilySearch Affiliate Library - public libraries, historical societies, etc., that have gained that status). It's a careful relationship that changes from time to time, such as loss of Ancestry's Newspapers.com collection last year for example. The reasons for that are probably not going to be made public, but are likely to be part of those careful negotiations between FamilySearch and Ancestry, and of course Ancestry has a profit to protect as a business entity (just like the several other companies in the same business). While it's not perfect for all of us researchers who'd like to have everything free, there are still advantages to having the other companies around that seem to "compete" with the not-for-profit FamilySearch that is free to everybody.
Fortunately, somebody figured out what the little icon was for, word got out, and places like the independent "The Family History Guide" and others made the information much more freely available. Some of us remember when everything was done by paper records, microfiche and microfilm readers .... 😉 (We've still got our microfiche reader in our FHC, along with two occasionally used microfilm readers for the two or three of the still-living that prefer their very old collection of "borrowed" microfilms they ordered years ago from the FHL rather than now viewing those same records on one of "them-there new-fangled computers," don'tchaknow! LOL!)
--Chris
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