Monday, August 21, 2017

Dear Randy: Your Advice on RootsMagic TreeShare

Reader Paula asked this in email:

"I have not downloaded the new upgrade merge fearing it will mess up years of data on RootsMagic. What is your suggestion?


1. Don't mess with your personal tree but make a backup in RM and then merge with Ancestry?
2. Download RootsMagic to Ancestry OR Ancestry to RootsMagic.

"As you can tell I'm very fearful of this merge. I'm sure others like myself have the same questions and sitting on this merge as I am. "


My response to Paula was:

The answer to your question rests on the question "Which tree is the most recent or best documented?"  

1)  You cannot TreeShare a current RootsMagic database with a current Ancestry Member Tree.  You either can upload a current RootsMagic tree to a NEW Ancestry tree, or download a current Ancestry tree into a NEW RootsMagic tree using TreeShare in RM Version 7.5.2.

2)  If it's your RootsMagic tree that is the most recent or best documented, then you don't have much of a problem.  You can upload it to a new Ancestry Member Tree without a problem using TreeShare.  That should upload your media, notes, sources, etc. in addition to the names, dates, places, relationships, etc.  

3)  If your Ancestry tree is the "best" you have, and you can give up the RootsMagic database you have, by all means save the RootsMagic tree to save it.  Then download the Ancestry tree to a new RootsMagic tree using TreeShare and you should receive the names, dates, places, relationships, facts, sources and media you have in your Ancestry tree.  

4)  If you have a lot of different data in both your Ancestry and RootsMagic trees, you could download the Ancestry tree to a new RootsMagic tree and then merge the current RootsMagic tree with the new one from Ancestry.  Before you do the merge, you will want to create a backup of your current RootsMagic tree just in case the merge has a problem.  After you have merged the two trees, you will need to resolve duplicate persons and duplicate facts in the merged tree.  Be sure to read the "Duplicate Search" tutorial on the RootsMagic Help menu.

After the merge of your two databases is complete, you will want to TreeShare (upload to Ancestry) the merged RootsMagic database into a NEW Ancestry Member Tree.  You could delete your previous Ancestry Member Tree after successfully uploading your tree to Ancestry.

5)  The key now is to keep your RootsMagic database and your Ancestry Member Tree up to date by running TreeShare on a regular basis.  I have found that if I TreeShare my RootsMagic database every day, it keeps both my RootsMagic database and my Ancestry Member Tree up to date.

6)  My previous posts about the RootsMagic TreeShare feature are:





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