Some of you may link instead to the online record and not attach at all (although we addressed above why this is not a good idea – given that online databases are not constants).Įither of these actions means that your records are now attached to your tree in the proper location for sourcing, which is vitally important, but when you create a GEDCOM, and transfer that tree, the records will no longer be accessible in that new tree. If you are doing research in most other situations, then you would download the records and attach them manually. If you are researching on Ancestry, MyHeritage and some other big sites, and are also using their tree, then the site does this for you. In a normal situation when you are doing family history research and find a new record you create a source citation and then attach the record you collected to that citation (whether it is a scanned document, photo, or text record). Or, if you want to continue to attach records to your main tree for ease of access, to continue to do that AND also link to them. The solution to this problem is to stop attaching your records to your family tree and start linking to them from one accessible online location. How to Start Linking to Your Genealogy Records in Your Family Tree It’s actually quite simple and, in many instances, completely free. Plus, software programs change, online sites come and go, and eventually you are bound to have to move everything.Įvery time we publish an article about family tree software or programs, or provide news about a new way to use your tree online, we get the same question – “How can I safely transfer my family tree and keep all of my records?”Īnd there IS a solution. That’s one of the fastest ways to accidentally lose all of your hard work. It’s easy enough to move a GEDCOM, and even update it semi-regularly, but moving attached sources one by one is impractical for anyone who regularly collects records.Īnd, if you’re thinking to yourself right now “ Well, I will just keep my tree in one spot forever,” we hope you will think again. This reality makes moving a tree in its complete form, or sharing our research with others, nearly impossible. There are a couple of exceptions to this and you can read about that here. Not only will people you share your tree with only be getting part of the story – losing access to critical details found in original records – you will not have easy access to this information either. If you move your tree to another location, online or off, you will have to manually reattach all of your records and photos one by one if you (or others) want to have access to them in that location.Įven family tree programs that sync with online versions often don’t sync actual records, just data. And, of course, records you stored on your computer will be completely inaccessible. If the database you collected your source record from is online, and the source citation was entered correctly, a person could conceivably access some of your records – but if the record is behind a paywall, or if the database you collected it from is not accessible anymore (this happens ALL of the time), there is a complete disconnect. Of course, a GEDCOM will transfer your source citations so that others know where you found your data, but people you share it with will not have direct access to those sources. And we all know how important it is to have accessible sources attached to a tree – they add depth and validity to our research. Separating source records from a tree is a recipe for confusion and mistakes. That means that if you want to download your tree off of Ancestry and upload it to the new family tree program RootsFinder, for instance, or export a copy from your offline program and share it via email, the new copy will no longer be connected to your actual records. Find out more about using GEDCOMs to transfer data in this article. That is because the standard method for transferring genealogical data is with a GEDCOM – and GEDCOMs transfer data, not scanned images, documents or attached text files. Many family historians are shocked to find that when they try to download their family tree from an online site, or export it from their computer program, that they lose the connection to all of their records.Ī record collected as part of research online, or downloaded and attached to a family tree, can not be transferred easily from one place to another. Unlike in the days when we ONLY stored our tree on our own computer, keeping the connection between a tree and its source records is tricky.
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