Downloading media from Ancestry

RootsMagic
1

Just that. Downloading tree from Ancestry and it hangs on media. By selectively deleting files that show in Media Viewer sorted to date of upload I’ve gotten to around 21 percent before hang, about 1,400 files.

Tree etc downloads fine.

As Ancestry will soon start charging $10/month to preserve anything attached to the tree I’d like to get what I can out.

BTW, I’m using a Mac and the essentials package. I’ll but the roots program if necessary

I’m sure this is an old problem but I did not find the answer, thank you for your time.

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is this charge only if you do NOT have a current subscription? Or an additional fee regardless

I download any media separately and add to RM this is something I began doing since Preview 8 version

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Only if your subscription ends. I do a little on and off so typically have a sub maybe half the year for the last 10 or 12 years.

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understood – agreed - I do about half then year on/off when I get a good special

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TL;DR: Use Claude.AI

So I used Claude.AI to build a script that worked for every file that still has a live link. it took a few tries but Claude figured it. I’ve been around computers some but not a coder. If you aren’t afraid to press some buttons it is doable. Here are some notes from Claude, copy them into your AI prompt:

  • The problem is specific dead/broken media records choking RootsMagic, not sleep or throttling by Ancestry
  • For bulk download, Ancestry has an undocumented but accessible API endpoint at /api/media/viewer/v1/trees/[treeID] that returns paginated JSON with media URLs
  • A Python script using that API with your session cookies downloads everything cleanly, skips duplicates, logs failures, and continues past broken records instead of stopping cold
  • AI assistance (Claude, GPT, whatever) can help build that script if you describe the problem

This isn’t any kind of a “hack” it uses your access to Ancestry so you need to be a paying customer. And if you don’t use AI, Start! Just talk to it as if it were a human. If it tells you to do so and so and you have no clue what it said, simply tell it “I have no clue what you just said.” Don’t let it off the hook it is actually lazy. I had to tell Claude that ChatGPT at least tried . . . then it stepped right up.

Finally, I don’t know how easy it will be to re-associate the files with the GEDcom. Roots downloaded files are named with an additional number compared to how I had to scrape them. That’s tomorrow.

BUT, at least I have them and BlackStone don’t get no rent.

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