Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Rabbit Holes With Randy -- RootsMagic 8 Treeshare With Ancestry

 This week's Rabbit Hole was to figure out what's wrong with my RootsMagic 8 family tree database vis-a-vis with my Ancestry Member Tree.

1)  When RootsMagic 8 was released on 30 September 2021, I jumped into it, learning all about the new navigation, new index, new source citation process, etc.  My research didn't stop - it kept going but now I needed to update the existing Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) using RootsMagic 8 (RM8).  

After a week of trying to make the RM8 file work with the existing AMT, I gave up because it was obvious something was messed up and it would never work.

2)  In mid-October 2021, I decoupled my RM8 database from the existing AMT, and uploaded my RM8 file to a brand new AMT.  With over 66,000 profiles, it took the best part of a day to upload, but it did - I set it off before going to bed one night.  However, after some time using it, I noticed that the new AMT did not have any source citations?  Huh?  I had 140,000 source citations, most of them free-form adhering close to Evidence Explained models.  What happened?

3)  I was told - and I forget by whom being of a certain age - in January 2022 that there was a flaw in the API that transferred data from RM8 to the new AMT - "Other" sources were not added.  Hmmm - now I need to do it again.  After adding more new profiles and updating thousands of profiles in the mean time - not least of which was the Family tree Analyzer rabbit hole last week - I carried on using TreeShare to add new profiles and update existing profiles in the new AMT several times a week.

4)  About two weeks ago, TreeShare stopped working for me.  It froze for a long time and I had to C-A-D my way out of RM8.  One day I had tried again, and went in to watch TV and take a nap, and - whoa - it had worked.   Well, cool - it was just taking a long-time to work.  But why do I now have tens of thousands of profiles to match with my AMT?

Well, long story short, they (who?  RM? A.com?) had fixed the API and now every frigging one of my profiles with a source is on the TreeShare list because the RM8 profiles are different from the AMT list.  Here's what it looks like on my TreeShare screen:

5)  There are over 50,000 profiles on that list, and almost every one of them are because of source citations in RootsMagic (the pink squares in the second column.  So now I have to go one-by-one on each profile to add the RM8 sources to the AMT profile.  That's a lot of clicks, even though I have a relatively new mouse and computer.  Even more importantly, that's a major waste of valuable research time.  If I did 100 profiles a night, it would take 18 months.

Since this happened, I've added several hundred new profiles and added dates, places, events, and sources to existing profiles.  They are not in the AMT creating new record hints or helping to find ThruLines.  

6)  So my solution is to not waste any more of my time.  What I am going to do is:

*  Find the profiles on the list that are new and add them to the Ancestry Member Tree.  At least they will be in the AMT.

*  When I've done that, decouple the RM8 database from the "new" AMT, but keep the "New" AMT on Ancestry for the Hints already created.

*  TreeShare the RM8 database to a "newer" AMT and make sure the source citations are included in the AMT.

7)  With all of my eggs in the RootsMagic basket, this has not been a fun or productive rabbit hole to go down, and I'm tired of it.  But I think my strategy will solve the problem.  

8)  Whew!  This genealogy bunny needs to climb out of this hole and find some carrots for brain food.  

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Copyright (c) 2022, Randall J. Seaver

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3 comments:

LeslieP said...

If RootsMagic were to offer a simple "update Ancestry from RM, full tree, overwrite Ancestry data with RM data" it would solve SO many problems and recover a lot of goodwill.

Like a lot of folks, I consider my desktop files to be the master, and use online trees to find hints and connect with cousins. I have NO need to update one aspect of one fact on one person at a time. When I want to update Ancestry, I want all of my RM data to go to Ancestry, but I do not want to create a new tree, with the resetting of hints, and need to re-add my relatives who are allowed to see living people, etc.

The result of the way RM works with Ancestry has meant that my Ancestry tree is never updated, and if I ever think about it, I am mad at RootsMagic for the way they insist on preventing me from having the solution I need.

Such a bad mistake that RM is making. Sad.

Diane Gould Hall said...

That is so troublesome and irritating Randy.
As you know, I use Legacy. However, since I wanted to preserve all my work on Ancestry so I invested in RM about 2 yrs ago. Every 6 months I sync RM with Ancestry, just to have a backup that includes images and sources (which we all know a Gedcom does not include).
That being said, after reading all of this I have no intention of updating RM. for my purposes it is working just fine. I have version 7.
Now back to your fun stuff…..after a good night’s sleep my friend.

Lateboomer said...

Yikes, Randy!

This RootsMagic warning came just in time for me. I have been scouting around looking for an Ancestry-compatible software program and if what happened to you is any indication I'll give it a hard pass. Wow!!