How to move your family tree from Ancestry or MyHeritage
Save your tree as a GEDCOM file, then open that file in the new place. GEDCOM is the one format every family-tree site and program shares. It carries the people, how they are related, their dates and places, and usually the sources. Photographs and documents do not travel in it, so download those you want to keep separately.
What GEDCOM carries, and what it does not
It carries:
- every person, with names, dates and places of birth, marriage and death;
- who is whose parent, child and partner;
- notes, and the sources you attached, as text.
It usually leaves behind:
- photographs and scanned documents;
- record images from the site’s own collections;
- hints, comments and anything shared with other members.
Saving the file
Each site puts the option in a different place, and menus change, so look for the words “export” or “GEDCOM” in your tree’s settings.
- Ancestry: open the tree’s settings and choose to export it. Ancestry prepares the file and offers it to download. Photographs and other media are not included.
- MyHeritage: look on your family tree’s management page for an export to GEDCOM.
- Findmypast: look in the tree’s settings for an export.
- FamilySearch: its shared world tree has no download of its own. Its help centre points to partner programs that can save a branch of it as a GEDCOM file.
The file ends in .ged. Keep a copy somewhere safe: it is your tree, whatever happens to any site.
Before you bring it in
- Check the living. A tree from a records site may hold full dates of birth for living relatives. That is fine in a private family record, but think about it before sending the file to anyone else.
- Expect some tidying. Duplicate people, and places spelt three ways, are common in any tree that has grown over years.
Bringing it into Heirstory
On Heirstory, choose Add or correct and bring in the file, with a note of where it came from. Heirstory finds the people in it who are already on your tree, or asks which person in the file is you. Then it adds the family connected to them.
- Up to 300 people from one file, those closest to you first.
- Probable until proven. Links from another site’s tree come in drawn dotted, because a tree is a lead, not proof. Mark the ones you know are right as proven, or let a certificate settle them.
- Private from the start. Nothing becomes public, and each living person decides what the rest see of them.
- Then what no file holds. Gene, an AI genealogist, asks your relatives about the people in it. What they remember is kept beside them.
Taking it out again
Your tree is never locked in. To take it to another site, download a family-tree file from your menu. It holds the people you see in full who died more than five years ago, with their dates, places, families and sources. Or download everything, for a full copy of all you may see, with the photographs and documents.
Questions
Will I lose my Ancestry tree if I move it?
No. Saving a GEDCOM file copies the tree; it does not change or delete it. You can keep using both.
Can I bring my photographs too?
Download them from the site you are leaving, then upload them on Heirstory and say who each is about. Each family has 1 GB of photographs and documents free.
What if my file is very large?
One file brings in up to 300 people, those closest to you first. The tree grows out from the people it already shares with yours.