Family Tree Upload Question

DiAnn Ervin

I have downloaded my Ancestry GEDCOM file of my family tree. Am I able to upload it here? I haven't found a way yet but I may be missing something?

Anitra Whittle

Hello DiAnn, Great question. I think it is a bit difficult.

Here is a link to explain how to upload a GEDCOM. Check the related articles at the bottom of the page.

I found this checking the ? Question mark on the upper right of this page and then opening Help Center near the bottom of the drop down.

Then I entered Upload GEDCOM and got this page and others.

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-upload-my-gedcom-file

Enjoy,

Anitra, Group Leader

Gordon Collett

DiAnn, as you pursue adding a GEDCOM to FamilySearch, please keep in mind your goal and make sure you will not be causing a huge amount of trouble and work for yourself and all your relatives. Since I have no idea who you are, how familiar you are with FamilyTree, why you want to upload, and who else may read this post, I will be being very basic and probably over explain.

There are two reasons to upload a GEDCOM to FamilySearch. The first is helpful and benign. The second is fraught with possible problems depending on how many people are in your Ancestry tree where your relatives lived.

First of all, when you upload a GEDCOM, you create a static, searchable family tree in the Pedigree Resource File under Genealogies. This file is available for everyone to research in. It cannot be edited or changed in any way, not even by you. All you can do is delete it. This can be a valuable way to store the current state of your data and share your research with others.

The second option is, after you have uploaded the GEDCOM, to transfer the information in that file into Family Tree. This process requires you to compare each person in your file, one at a time, with all possible existing matches in the 1.3 billion people already in Family Tree in an attempt to prevent you from creating a bunch of duplicates in Family Tree. Depending on the size of your file this can take hours to weeks. You cannot simply dump all your data into Family Tree.

Since Family Tree is a single, universal, wiki-style, open-edit community tree, when you add a GEDCOM to Family Tree, you are not creating a tree for yourself, you are adding data to our joint existing tree. Depending you where your ancestors came from, anywhere from 10% to 90% of your GEDCOM file people are almost certain to already to be in Family Tree.

Even though is seems like more work, it is usually best in the long run to re-enter your family in Family Tree directly, finding all the people already there and just adding the few that are not, rather than trying to do this with a GEDCOM. On way to do this is to put your Ancestry GEDCOM into a desktop program that can link people in it with people in Family Tree and then add people to Family Tree that are not already there from that program.