22 replies to this topic

[dcrowthe]

I just gave up on a full download of my Family Tree from FamilySearch after a week's wait, which only got me to the 21st Great generation. I finally had to click cancel so I could reboot.

 

I just want to make sure that things didn't get fouled up because of having to click cancel, then eventually having to kill the program because it hung all day in the cancel process.

 

The good news - I've got 91,000+ individuals imported. (I know, some reading this would kill for that, but life's lots easier when you have generations of genealogists preceding you and happen to tie into a couple of royal lines...

 

The bad news, not a single source was imported.

 

Am I correct in understanding that I have to go through 91,000+ people and for every one of them, go through multiple clicks to import all the sources?

 

Please tell me that's a remnant of a bad database download and I won't have to do that.

 

If that's true, is there ANY way to do this faster? I purchased Roots Magic to try to speed and clean up the process, but this situation is not making my toes curl with joy.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Don

[Ronald Tilby]

Don, I suspect that you may have run into a looping pedigree in FamilySearch Family Tree when doing your download.  Have you tried splitting your download activity by (for example) downloading the ancestors of each of your grandparents or great-grandparents separately? and/or limiting the number of generations that you ask for?

 

Also, at Rootstech in February FamilySearch announced that they expected to complete some major database back-end changes this summer which would improve performance of Family Tree for both API and Web browser users.  So download performance should get better in the not-to-distant future.

[Renee Zamora]

We recommend importing only 4 generations at a time, and only into a new blank database. It's amazing you got as far as you did with all that is going on with FamilySearch right now.  The FT API Import doesn't support the sources. They need to be done one person, and one source at a time. I suspect FamilySearch won't change that until they do a lot of modification when they put in the Memory feature. 

[dcrowthe]

Thanks for these comments.

 

But they didn't answer my key question - do sources come with the download, or do you have to do every person manually?

 

Don

[Renee Zamora]

The FT API Import doesn't support the sources. They need to be done one person, and one source at a time. 

 

So yes, when you download a person through the FT API the sources do not come with them. You need to do them each manually.

 

Maybe when FamilySearch moves to the new servers that grow with capacity they might add that into the import/download. For now it would bog things down to much to include sources with all the individuals people are trying to massively import. 

[dcrowthe]

Thanks. I'll keep my fingers crossed. 

[CC58]

"The FT API Import doesn't support the sources. They need to be done one person, and one source at a time."

 

Above quote was posted May 2016.  Is this still true in 2018? 

 

Really wish there was a way to import sources from familysearch.org when importing a family tree.

[Renee Zamora]

It has not changed.

[hazelps]

Hey 

 

I'm a newbie in this forum. It would be helpful if any body could share some useful links here.I doesn't know much about this.

A basic knowledge would be enough rather than digging into this. Is this a free site or a paid one?

Thanks

[Jerry Bryan]

I'm a newbie in this forum. It would be helpful if any body could share some useful links here.I doesn't know much about this.

A basic knowledge would be enough rather than digging into this. Is this a free site or a paid one?

FamilySearch is a free site provided by the LDS (Mormon) church. You do not have to be an LDS member to use it. You can get a limited amount of value from the site without logging in, but to get maximum value from the site you need to log in. An account is free. The site contains a huge number of original records such as census records. There is a search engine, you can view the original records, and you can download them. In addition the site contains a community tree called Family Tree which is intended to be a huge tree of everybody in the world. You can login directly to FamilySearch to view and edit the Family Tree. This allows you to see the research previously conducted by other people and it allows you to contribute your own research to the community tree. In addition, RootsMagic can connect to FamilySearch and you can use RootsMagic to transfer data back and forth between your own database and the community tree rather than logging in directly to FamilySearch.

 

Jerry

[alanmon]

"The FT API Import doesn't support the sources. They need to be done one person, and one source at a time."

 

Above quote was posted May 2016.  Is this still true in 2018? 

 

Really wish there was a way to import sources from familysearch.org when importing a family tree.

 

It is possible, using a python program, to download more than one person at a time. Google for "getmyancestors.py". You may also need to download Python 3.4 to run it.

 

Example:

Download six generations of ancestors for individuals L4S5-9X4 and LHWG-18F including all their children, grandchildren and their spouses:

python3 getmyancestors.py -a 6 -d 2 -m -u username -p password -i L4S5-9X4 LHWG-18F -o out.ged

I output a table from the RM file into a CSV file containing only those people with a familySearch ID (I can't remember all the details). then loaded that file into a spreadsheet and combined all the IDs into one command in a batch file, renaming the output fiel to include the name of the main person, the number of ancestors, the number of descendants, . Then ran that. It could teke a long time and generate a large file. I think about 10 IDs is probably about enough per command but the spreadsheet could generate several commands in one batch file.

 

Do not merge these GEDs into your main file as they are user provided, accuracy not guaranteed.

[Renee Zamora]

GetMyAncestors no longer works. I think it was even before the FT API had sources to download. There are a lot of people trying to suck down massive amounts of data from FSFT so they are trying to restrict how much. Sources are one of them. 

[R Cummings]

Good Afternoon,

 

So if I am understanding the gist correctly, I could do a large tree download "with sources" with the sync feature with Ancestry, but not FamilySearch?

 

RandyC

[Renee Zamora]

Correct.

[R Cummings]

Wow, thats a drag, I guess I can understand since anyone can be a member and add to the same tree, I guess it makes sense for them.

 

But I would have to advise family not to go to the trouble to do all that typing there. better to type it into Roots Magic and upload it, right? )

 

I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to contribute to Ancestry, Yikes!

 

Thank you Renee

Randy

[Renee Zamora]

You can still add on the FamilySearch Person Screen all the sources. Just have to do it one at a time. 

 

Not sure about your comment on not contributing to Ancestry. You get all the sources with a download from them. 

[Jerry Bryan]

You don't actually "contribute to ancestry" in the same way you "contribute to FamilySearch". Your tree on ancestry is your tree, but you are contributing to a single community tree at FamilySearch that is both updated and seen by all FamilySearch users.

 

Well, you can "contribute to ancestry" by making your private tree to be public, but you don't have to do so. And even if you make it public, it's still your tree. It can be seen by others but not modified by others. And if you don't want a tree at ancestry to be seen by others, just leave it private.

 

Jerry

[Tex Lawrence]

You don't actually "contribute to ancestry" in the same way you "contribute to FamilySearch". Your tree on ancestry is your tree, but you are contributing to a single community tree at FamilySearch that is both updated and seen by all FamilySearch users.

 

This is what ticks me off about Ancestry.com. Even if your brother sits at a computer next to you, and he puts your mother into his tree then you also have to put your mother into your tree.

 

Going form FamilySearch to Ancestry.com has made this painfully obvious.

[Jerry Bryan]

 

This is what ticks me off about Ancestry.com. Even if your brother sits at a computer next to you, and he puts your mother into his tree then you also have to put your mother into your tree.

 

Going form FamilySearch to Ancestry.com has made this painfully obvious.

 

As is often the case, the "whole truth" is a little more complicated than is a broad overview of a situation. At ancestry.com, your tree is your personal tree rather than being a part of a single tree that belongs to the whole world as is the case of familysearch. But ancestry.com does support making someone else an editor of your tree, such as your brother who is sitting right next to you. If you made your brother an editor of your tree at ancestry.com, then the two of you could both work on the tree. There are also options at ancestry.com to allow the whole world to see (but not edit) your tree, or to keep your tree private from the rest of the world.

 

Jerry

[robertjacobs0]

Tex LKarence wrote: "This is what ticks me off about Ancestry.com. Even if your brother sits at a computer next to you, and he puts your mother into his tree then you also have to put your mother into your tree."

 

But suppose it's not your brother, but some semi-literate whose research is sloppy, who is prone to jumping to conclusions, who doesn't bother to provide evidence, and who is often in error, but never in doubt? We've all seen them in Ancestry.com and Family Search histories.