I see no updates recently on transferring media from Ancestry to RM 11. For RM 8 there was talk of getting media into a blank database but I’m not sure how the links work then. There was no explanation how to do it anyway. So does anyone know how to get media from Ancestry into RM 11 please?
You use TreeShare to download your Ancestry tree into RM.
Watch the video on youtube about it.
On an initial download from an Ancestry tree to a new and empty RM database using TreeShare, all the media is supposed to be downloaded. There is not an option to include media or not as there is on an initial upload from RM to a new and empty Ancestry tree.
After the initial download, new media that you have added in Ancestry shows up in TreeShare as an item that is different between Ancestry and RM. You can download the new media files from Ancestry on a one media file at a time basis.
You cannot download media from Ancestry if you do the data transfer using GEDCOM.
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Thanks. I have downloaded my Gedcom file from Ancestry, but now I’m unsure how to get the media files.
Aha. So, can I just delete the old database and share again from Ancestry the whole tree?
Gedcom does not include Media.
Use Treeshare to get data & Media.
Create a New database and download from Ancestry.
OK. Brand new database, shared everything from Ancestry, and while all the media has transferred to a folder, only about a half a dozen images have linked to the tree.
If I click on ‘edit person’ the media shows up in the new panel, but only about 6 out of hundreds of images actually display in the tree. Is there something else I have to do?
Oh I think I have it. I have to go into each entry and add one of the photos as a primary photo. sigh OK it’s gonna be a few hours work, but at least I get what I wanted in the end so all is good. Thanks for your help @Maddog and @thejerrybryan
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I’m not what you would call a heavy user of TreeShare. I use it mostly as a way to get WebHints from Ancestry, so I’m not always up to date on every single little detail of TreeShare lore. For example, I download media files from Ancestry manually rather than using TreeShare to download media files from Ancestry. But I have certainly at least played with all of Treeshare’s features at one time or another.
That being the case, I don’t think you have to mark media files from TreeShare as primary in order to see them in RM. As far as I know, there is only one place in RM where marking a media file as primary has any practical importance. Namely, you can mark one media file for the Person record as primary and it will be the one for which a thumbnail shows up at the top of the RM screens for the person. There are also a few reports where that one media file will appear. That may be what you are talking about, in which case I don’t know how TreeShare handles the marking of one media file as primary. From what you are saying, it doesn’t sound like it marks any of them as primary.
But for facts and sources and citations and things like that, I don’t think marking a media file as primary makes any difference. That’s because RM doesn’t print such media files in most reports. For example, suppose you have several different photos for a person’s grave marker. Suppose you link all of them to the person’s Burial fact and mark one of them as primary. Even marked as primary, the media file will not appear in most RM reports.
What is important is that media files be marked as Include in scrapbook. That’s because you can produce Scrapbook reports of RM media files, and files included in RM’s Scrapbook reports only if they are so marked. Scrapbook reports are separate and apart from things like RM’s narrative reports and RM’s Family Group Sheets where no media files are printed except for the primary photo for the person record. I do not know if TreeShare marks the media files it downloads as Include in scrapbook or not.
Hi. Yeah I want an image to display in tree view just because it makes it more interesting. But you’re right, it does not add an image as primary, but while adding a primary image manually, the same edit box allows you to tick to add the image to the ‘scrapbook’, which as you say allows it to be added to reports etc.
It seems at the moment that only 2 images for each entry are allowed to be added to the scrapbook. I need to play around with it some more to see if that’s correct. If so it feels like a very odd thing to do.
I have never encountered an upper limit on scrapbook size.
I don’t think there is a “Primary” option in Ancestry tree, it just lumps all pictures for a person under the person’s name.
Pain to do 1 by 1 unfortunately.
For the Citations - the Media is connected to it. If you want to change “tag” it, just go to it and add the other tags you want. I like to see the image for Residence on the actual Residence. That way I know I have the image for it.
I think that way it will be included in the Scrapbook.
There is definitely a choice in RM 11 to mark a photo as the primary, or ‘profile’ photo. I’ve done dozens of them so far.
I’ve only tested it on about 6 profiles but every person who has more than 2 images, I can only set 2 images into scrapbook. I’ll keep looking to see if I missed something but so far only 2 can be registered for the scrapbook.
In RM there is a primary but I was talking about none in Ancestry.
I get all photos for a person in Scrapbook so don’t know what is happening there.
Oh sorry. There is a way to get a primary photo in Ancestry, but it’s just not called Primary photo. You click on the camera instead of the gallery and whatever photo you choose becomes the primary photo. You can change it whenever you like though.
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So here is a situation in my database with 3 media files.
Then, each 1 of 3 is marked to be included in the Scrapbook. How does yours differ from this?
Now, the odd thing is that although all the media I have are photos, only photos of people can be added to the scrapbook. Things like photos of census records simply don’t have the option. I have no idea why.
EDIT: I have just been back in and I have added 10 images to the scrapbook in one entry, and images to other entries such as census records which previously would not add.
I wonder if the odd reboot/restart of the program helps things along?
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My census images go into scrapbooks just fine. Are you linking your census images into RM as type File or as type Image. They have to be type Image to go into a scrapbook.
They’re all images apart from maybe 2 dozen documents but I’ve not added them yet. Maybe I was just being a noob? Maybe the computer benefitted from a reboot? Maybe gremlins came from outer space to irritate me? 
It all seems to be working fine now and I’m so pleased I came across RootsMagic. It’s by far the best of the 6 I tried.
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