How to Save Gedcom Files to Transfer to Other Genealogy Websites

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Do you need to learn how to download GEDcom files so you can transfer your family tree between multiple different platforms and your computer? Then this video is for you. Welcome to Family History Fanatics. My name is Devin Noel Lee. And before I show you how to do the transferring, let’s explain why you might need to save, create, download. In other words, get a copy of your GEDcom file. Well, the first thing is actually to back up your family tree. If your tree is in a genealogy software program or online, having a GEDcom file of that tree is the file format that is universal. That can be shared through genealogy software programs and websites, but it serves as a backup and you should always be backing up your tree. The other thing that GEDcoms files does, as I alluded to, it’s the universal program that can be used by other websites and genealogy software program.

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So you can transfer your GEDcom files to Ancestry, you can transfer your GEDcom to My Heritage to GEDmatch to find my path to Wiki Tree and so on. Now, there are some platforms. You can just upload your GEDcom file and now you can start editing and making changes. And there’s other programs where you just upload a GEDcom file and just access the information. The one website that you cannot upload your GEDcom file two and then edit it as part of the family tree research you’re trying to do is family search. Now I have a video explaining why you cannot upload your family tree to the family search website. Be sure to check a link in this description below for this video. Now let’s talk about downloading your GEDcom file. The first place you can go to download a GEDcom file is from the program Roots Magic Roots Magic will be very similar to any other genealogy software programs you have out there. You will be able to export your, family tree into a GEDcom file. So let me show you how to do that right now. So come up to look for file. I’m up here on file and when I open it, I have the option to export. So when I export, there are a lot of choices. I can export everyone from my Family tree or I can choose from a list. Let’s say I wanted to get only the people from the Branden Burger Group and I wanna get the Ancestors for 10 Generation

(02:59):
And all the collateral lines that might actually meet a lot of people. But notice some of these ones right along here. They’re not going to be part of that export. I clicked ‘okay’ , and then there are more choices I can have or not have. I’m gonna turn off multimedia links. It gets a little wonky when you try to transfer multimedia between, platform. So I go ahead and turn that off. Um, you can privatize living people, but when you transfer your GEDcom files between software program, um, don’t privatize living people. If you’re, you’re given a copy to somebody you don’t know, but if it’s somebody you are wanting to research on a different location, then go ahead and and leave that open. So, um, unchecked, I mean go ahead and click okay and then you’ll be told how to go forth and save your, your file.

(03:57):
So I’m just gonna call a test and then I have a jet com file. Easy as that. So pretty much all genealogy software programs work just like that. What happens if you want to download your family tree, back it up, share it with other websites, and your family tree is over on My Heritage. Let’s walk through how you do that right now. Let’s say you want to transfer your tree from My Heritage to some of the other programs that we talked about. You could download it using genealogy software, but there’s also a way to use it from the website. So when we go to our trees on my heritage, we’re going to go up to Family Tree and then manage the trees. So if you need to transfer your tree from My Heritage to other locations, this is how you download those GEDcom files. So go to My Heritage and log into your tree, then go to Family Tree, manage your tree.

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After you go to manage your Tree, look all the way over here on the right and it’s super easy, easy. You can download your original GEDcom file that started your tree or you can export the one that you have created using My Heritage. Include the photos. I’m actually gonna not download the photos and then begin the export. Once you come here, you have the option to add the photos or take them off. I take them off. They can’t do it that way. Now once you’re on this slide, you have a couple of options. You can’t export your personal photos or your photo album. I’m not going to because I’m going to transfer it to another website and I don’t really want to have the photos attached. So I’m gonna begin the export and when just a moment, all of a sudden

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GEDcom is generated and it typically takes a few minutes, you’ll receive an email when it’s ready to be viewed. So then next website you might be interested in finding out about is ancestry.com. How are we going to transfer our or export a GEDcom file to create one using Ancestry? Well, all you have to do is go to a tree. Now I actually have several trees. I have the Geisler Tree, the Uncle Bob’s tree, and the Rain Tree. But I’m gonna go ahead and export this tree, the Geisler Brown Tree. So I go over to tree settings and then I’m going to scroll down and it says Export the Tree. Pretty straightforward. It’s going to run a calculation and tell you when it’s ready to be it. And if you have a very large tree, it can take a while right there. So unlike my heritage, they’re gonna send you an email when it’s ready Ancestry, you’re gonna download it straight to your computer. How cool is that?

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Now let’s talk about what do we do with Family Search. Well, you can download your treat from Family Search and I’ll show you how to do that now. Now you might be wondering, why, why are you over in a genealogy software program again to download a tree from Family Search? Well, because you can’t download your tree from Family Church because it’s a really big tree. It’s billions of people together because it’s a one tree, not an independent tree. So you have to use third party software. So let me show you how to first get your tree from Family Search into Roots Magic. This is the one we’re using today. And then all you have to do is repeat the process like we did earlier for this group and export it. But first let me show you how to get it, the file from Family Search. So let’s close out of this one. We’re gonna make a new file and we’re gonna call this Test two. And once that’s open, I’m going to connect to Family Search and I want to import data. Now I can import data from myself or I can import data from somebody over on Family Search. So let’s say I’m going to get Geraldine Rain, you hear about her a lot here on Family History Fanatics. I’m going to come up here to this funny little number and that’s her person id. If I click on it, I can click

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On the popup that says Copy the ID. I don’t have to do the copy paste. It does it for me. And then I go back to the third party program, roots Magic and I paste it in there. Now I’m gonna recommend that you don’t download everybody, uh, to Family Search. Just get a couple generations, some more generations you try to include the longer it’s going to take. So I’m just gonna do, you know, just four, generations of ancestors. I can always add more people to, uh, roots Magic. But I’m gonna start there. Oh, it will have me log in and then I’ll wait and I’ll wait until it finishes. And once it’s finished, then I’ll be able to save it to my tree, uh, to my computer as a GEDcom file and then share it to the different places I need to share it.

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So once again, you can save your GEDcom file from a lot of platforms and then you can then upload them to My Heritage Ancestry Wiki Tree, find my Past, and so on. Lots of places where you can use your GEDcom files. Now if you have further questions on how to do genealogy skills, then make sure you put a link, your questions in the comments section because that’s how this question, this video came to be. Someone said, Hey, you know, I wanna get my ancestry tree to find my past and I don’t know how. That’s where the download a GEDcom file from Ancestry and then imported in Find My Tree comes to be. And stay tuned for more videos on how to use Find My Past in the Future. And for now, if you wanna check out our latest video, I’m not sure which way to go. If you wanna check our latest video, it’s right here somewhere.