Thursday, August 25, 2016

Adding Descendant Information the Easy Way - Post 1: Importing it From FamilySearch Family Tree

I wrote Finding Descendants of Rudolph Spangler (1738-1811) In the FamilySearch Family Tree on 23 August 2016, and reader James asked me in email:

"OK, you found 793 descendants of Rudolph Spangler, how are you going to add their information to your RootsMagic database?  Don't you already have some of them?"

Two good questions, and my responses are:

1)  Here is the process I am going to use to improve my RootsMagic database and the FamilySearch Family Tree entries:

*  Step 1)  Download the descendants of Rudolph Spangler that are in the FamilySearch Family Tree into a new RootsMagic database, 
*  Step 2)   Create a GEDCOM file of that database
*  Step 3)  Upload the GEDCOM to a new Ancestry Member Tree.  
*  Step 4)  Let Ancestry find the records for those persons in the Hints, Suggested Records, and Searches
*  Step 5)  Add the pertinent names, relationships, events, dates, places, and sources to my master RootsMagic database manually.  
*  Step 6)  Match the new persons in my RootsMagic database with the FamilySearch Family Tree persons and add or correct information as needed.

2)  I already do have some of them for my particular line from Rudolph Spangler, so I will double check the Ancestry Hints for those persons and add content and sources for them as necessary.  However, I am more interested in the descendants of the siblings of my Spangler ancestors - these are also my cousins and may be DNA matches.  

Step 1 is to download the descendants of Rudolph Spangler from the FamilySearch Family Tree into a new RootsMagic database.  Here is the process for Step 1:

1)  I clicked on File > New on my RootsMagic screen and the "Create a new RootsMagic file" screen opened.  [Note:  I want to create a NEW RootsMagic database so that the information I import doesn't create problems in my "Master" RootsMagic database.] I gave my new database a name - "Rudolf Spangler Descendants" - and picked "Import information from another program."


2)  Now I want to Import persons from the FamilySearch Family Tree.  This can be performed from within the RootsMagic 7 program in the Main > FamilySearch Central menu item:


3)  The "FamilySearch Central" screen opened, and I clicked on the "Import" button on the screen, and the "Import a Tree From FamilySearch" screen appeared.  I had to go look for the FamilySearch ID for Rudolf Spangler (it is LCRX-2X9) and picked 0 Ancestors and 6 Descendants for the "Generations to import."


4)  I clicked on the "Import" button, and the importing process started - you can watch the names flash by almost one at a time.  I took this screen shot at the beginning of the process:


5)  The Import took about 12 minutes to bring in 1402 names (and their births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials) from the FamilySearch Family Tree into my "Rudolf Spangler Descendants" RootsMagic database:


6)  I "Close"d the screen and looked at my new RootsMagic database.  

What a mess - there are many ? names, no list of children is in date order, there are some of duplicate persons, there are few standard place names, etc.  It is apparent that very few persons have worked on this Spangler branch of the FamilySearch Family Tree, with the exception of my branch from Daniel Spangler.  I spent about an hour trying to clean up some of the obvious problems, and now have a tree with 1349 persons.

7)  Step 2 is to create a GEDCOM file for this Spangler database.  I will do that and then do Step 3 to import the GEDCOM file into a new Ancestry Member Tree in the next post in this series.

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The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/08/adding-descendant-information-easy-way.html

Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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1 comment:

SueFitz said...

First thank you for your 8/23 article showing puzilla hadn't heard of that before. I usually have used the fan chart, but your way looks better.

I was able to find a Revolutionary patriot with a fan chart

Second, thank you I thought I was the only idiot that did this. My master is in RM and I usually do this exercise to find more ancestors myself and then look to Ancestry for additional clues.