I have some large Ancestry trees I wand to download to RM, then do some large scale programmatic cleanup/changes (inc. python/sqlite etc..), disconnect from the old ancestry tree, and then upload as a new tree back to Ancestry. When I upload as a new tree the ancestry sources/records seem to reconnect ok, but the citation/source details is completely blank. The citation/source info in RM is as expected (not blank). Any ideas on how to get the citation/source info to get copied into the ancestry source on the upload? I’d prefer not to upload as “other sources”.
When you click on Ancestry record does it show the name of the master source? In RM do you have any citation information?
Yes, I’ve been experimenting w/ a very small tree in Ancestry (this is RM10 BTW), then download to a new tree in RM, then disconnect from Ancestry, then upload to a new tree in Ancestry. All of the Source/Citation information from the original ancestry tree is still in RM after uploading to the new ancestry tree. Everything looks exactly correct when clicking on the “Ancestry record” of the source in the new tree, but the “Citation details” section is completely blank as I pasted. The original ancestry tree is of course not blank as it has all the usual stuff that Ancestry puts in there for a census record.
I’m sorry that I don’t have the information to cite exact chapter and verse for all the possibilities, but there is a good bit of data that doesn’t survive a round trip between Ancestry and RM. I don’t think it much matters whether the round trip is RM to Ancestry to RM, or if the round trip is Ancestry to RM to Ancestry. I don’t think the differences are quite as noticeable if they are only in one direction, like RM to Ancestry only or Ancestry to RM only. But I think the differences become more noticeable after round trips of the data.
In my opinion, the chief cause is that RM and Ancestry have different data models for storing genealogical data. And still in my opinion, I think that TreeShare does about as good a job as is possible to compensate for the difference in the data models. But some of the differences in the data models are just too large for there to be a reasonable compensation.
Another problem is that RM is limited to the API provided by Ancestry to transfer data in and out of Ancestry. Even if RM and Ancestry could in principle share certain pieces of data without loss, that doesn’t matter if the API provided by Ancestry doesn’t pass everything through without loss.
Have you tried clicking the “Edit Citation” button in the Source pop-up window of the Ancestry record? I have not tested this in a while but there used to be an issue where ancestry would accept text formatting codes such as <i> </i> via treeshare but then would not display any characters after the first “<”. When this occurred and the Edit Citation button was clicked, we could confirm that all of the text was there. It just would not display in the pop-up window.
Also, I’m assuming that the Source is appearing in the “Ancestry Sources” section of the webpage and not the “Other Sources Section”. Is that true?
OK. I did some testing this morning and can recreate the issue on RM10 latest release. I don’t have time to crawl thru tables now but I suspect we’ll find that here’s been a change to ancestry’s api.
[edit] I can also confirm that this same behavior appears in a tree that I uploaded to Ancestry on 5 Nov 2024. I had not noticed this before since the source data appears fine. One thing I’ll add is that it’s long been the case that you cannot upload custom edits to “Ancestry Sources”. If you want text to display on an “Ancestry Source” beyond what Ancestry provides, then you need to add an Event Note in RM and, as you point out, it will upload as an “Other Source”.
I did a very simple test - made a copy of my RM db using my OS file system, before making any RM db edits, I disconnected the db from my ancestry tree, and then pushed a new tree up to ancestry. All of the “Ancestry sources” appear as expected, the Ancestry Record portion of the pop-up window looks fine but the Citation Details are blank. Clicking on Edit Citation confirms all of the fields contain no text.
and
Thanks for checking this out and recreating the issue.
This is disappointing as bulk modifications of the citation details are what I was hoping to do on the RM side. I would think the API is the same as what FTM is using and it can do this but FTM doesn’t have anywhere near the automation capabilities of what one can accomplish on the RM database.
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Ok, so the ability to upload custom edits to ancestry sources has long been “not supported”, but is this also true for downloading custom edits of ancestry sources? For my testing it appears that custom edits already in Ancestry will not show up on download either. The download looks like it just grabs the ancestry record and then fills in whatever auto-fill that ancestry provides overriding /ignoring any custom edits already done on ancestry.