I want to create a Family Tree Maker database in my Ancestry.Com account from my Windows based RM 8 database. How do I do this and will it transfer all of my media files, events and notes?
Do I start bt exporting a gedcom? When I look at help on my Ancestry account it says to refer to my RM software for help, but I don’t see anything. Is it called Treeshare or something?
Thanks.
TreeShare will upload your RM database to Ancestry (no Gedcom).
Run the Tools first and then select the Ancestry Icon at bottom. This will walk you thru the process.
Here is the video on how it works (it’s an older video but works the same now)
As @MadDog said upload from RM to Ancestry (if that current RM database is not already connected). Once your RM database has fully uploaded to Ancestry you should then be able to download to a new FTM tree and maintain there (or I believe you can actually maintain connections through both but I would not recommend that as that risk for sync failures with FTM would increase). FTM has too many sync errors in my experience to trust my data to. I switched to RM initially because of the sync failures. FTM has 3 (for me) main advantages over RM:
- Can see 8 colors at time
- the Calendar report can customize colors by event
- add on book creator
Not sure of the reasons why FTM does not import from the tables like Family Historian can.
FTM falls short of RM in numerous ways starting with being a closed database (no access)
- Suggestions to upload tree to ancestry via RM are probably best. A RM gedcom to FTM does not seem to work well. I have tried sending gedcoms from FTM to RM to use some features and then back only to get a mangled database.
- FTM sync to ancestry works well and never seems to fail like RM often does for many people.
can you explain what you mean by “fail”? Or do you mean not working as expected? (fail mean not working as designed which is different).
Can you explain what you already have, and where? I’m asking, because you can create quite a mess when you already have trees on Ancestry, in FTM, and in RootsMagic. And with in FTM, I mean in the desktop program, not on Ancestry.
My personal line of thought is, that if you have a Family Tree Maker database, you should use that program to synchronize that with Ancestry, because that’s the most direct way. You can do similar things between RM and Ancestry, but 3-way synchronizations look like a quick route to disaster.
Main file is mac FTM 2019 (soon to be 2024) which syncs only up to ancestry.com tree (2ndary tree).
I imported a FTM gedcom to RM10 to evaluate its usefulness and features. If I then reversed the process to return to FTM from RM 10 I get a file with different people media, sources and citations.
Mac RM 10 is a powerful genealogy program but far less easy to use and hindered by Intel code and a non standard port to the mac.
OK, thanks, I get it, and understand your decision. I have my main tree in Gramps, and use RM 9 to exchange data with Ancestry and FamilySearch.
So assuming that you are returning the same file back to FTM that you imported from FTM to RM10, you are saying that somehow RM10 added people to your file as well as sources and media (that weren’t there when you imported the GED file)?
when you compare file properties they differ significantly both up and down for many parameters. I did a test and made NO changes in RM before the Gedcom export.
…and none of those numbers surprise me a bit. I am betting you will see similar differences regardless of which program you try. It is already a well know issue that pretty much every program out there imports and exports GED files differently. Due to this, there is always some possibility of data differences.
@Heathrow —sorry we missed the fact that you were still using RM 8— because of the 2 step verification now used by Ancestry, you can NOT tree share from RM 8 to Ancestry anymore— you have to have RM 9 or RM 10…
So you either need to update to RM 9 OR RM 10 ( suggest RM 10) — a gedcom to Ancestry is the only way with RM 8 BUT keep in mind, you may lose some of your data–here is a complete list posted by Tom and Jerry of gedcom loses…
https://sqlitetoolsforrootsmagic.com/gedcom-dnd-transfer-losses/#Multiple-Transfers-from-One-Database-to-Another
The biggest pain is that your media files are NOT uploaded and you can lose any customized facts/ citations as well as shared facts only appear on the principal person…
after you upload the tree then you could download your Ancestry file to FTM—seems that once you get your tree downloaded to FTM, you could attach your media and possibly it would synch up to Ancestry BUT if it does, I would only fix a few at a time and then synch-- then rinse and repeat…
other option is to try a gedcom from RM to FTM— and then check to see if you have a mangled mess as Rooty said he did…
Oops, I just noticed that I forgot to address @Heathrow in my question.
So @Heathrow , what do you mean by a Family Tree Maker database? I find the term a bit confusing, because in my view, the type of the database is determined by the program that I use to work on it.
I assume he is referring to a database made in the program Family Tree Maker program.
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