10 replies to this topic

[Tcluster]

I would like my Ancestry tree to be in synch with my tree in RootsMagic at all times without having to manually add new people to the Ancestry tree or manually allow changes to go from RootsMagic to the corresponding Ancestry record.  It doesn't look to me as if TreeShare will do this.  Am I missing something?

 

If it were automatic then the two trees (RM and Ancestry) would always be in synch.  The way it is now I forget to use the TreeShare button to synch it up, and they get so far out of synch that I end up deleting the tree on the Ancestry side and replacing it with a new copy from RM.  There are two problems with this.  As the Ancestry tree gets behind, common ancestor information and ThruLines in the DNA tab isn't up to date, so I miss the benefit of Ancestry's ability to compare my tree with trees of people whose DNA I match, and when I finally get around to replacing the tree, all of this information in the DNA tab in Ancestry must be re-created.

 

 

[TomH]

No, nothing missed. That's as designed. Nor does Family Tree Maker auto-update but it does a batch sync manually started, which is closer to your wish. There is always an undercurrent of problems reported syncing FTM sometimes resulting in database corruption or loss of the relationship with the Ancestry Tree. RM's one-at-a-time update seems to avoid much of that at the expense of being much more laborious.

[Rick Landrum]

I would like my Ancestry tree to be in synch with my tree in RootsMagic at all times without having to manually add new people to the Ancestry tree or manually allow changes to go from RootsMagic to the corresponding Ancestry record.  It doesn't look to me as if TreeShare will do this.  Am I missing something?

 

If it were automatic then the two trees (RM and Ancestry) would always be in synch.  The way it is now I forget to use the TreeShare button to synch it up, and they get so far out of synch that I end up deleting the tree on the Ancestry side and replacing it with a new copy from RM.  There are two problems with this.  As the Ancestry tree gets behind, common ancestor information and ThruLines in the DNA tab isn't up to date, so I miss the benefit of Ancestry's ability to compare my tree with trees of people whose DNA I match, and when I finally get around to replacing the tree, all of this information in the DNA tab in Ancestry must be re-created.

 

 

Tcloster,

From my own sad experience, I would add an additional problem. If you replace your tree on Ancestry, with your latest RM tree, all of your hints will be recreated in Ancestry. This requires a 100% review to accept or decline in RM. That is if you use hints...

Rick

[Tcluster]

Thanks to both of you.  I have a couple of followup questions or observations, if you don't mind.

 

When TreeShare identifies a new person on the RM side that has no corresponding person on the Ancestry side, I've formed the opinion that the order in which I move them to Ancestry doesn't matter.  When I was first faced with this task, I thought I needed to move them in a logical order, so that Ancestry could find someone to attach them to, but that was very time consuming, and didn't seem to be necessary.  So the way it works must be that if Ancestry can't find a connection, it holds the new person aside until another person (or persons) comes across to fill in the gaps.

 

When TreeShare shows me records of people on both sides, sometimes it identifies elements that differ.  The interesting thing about this is that sometimes these elements don't appear to me to be related to anything I've changed.  One of them might be, but there are others where I don't recognize the change.  In any case, since I only update on the RM side, I click the boxes on the RM side and tell TreeShare to accept the changes.

 

Sometimes when TreeShare shows me the corresponding records there are no check boxes to indicate any differences.  I wasn't sure what to make of this.  I don't have one of these in front of me right now, so I'm depending upon my memory, but I know it wasn't clear - at least not to me - about  how to proceed.  Eventually I discovered a way of telling TreeShare "never mind about this - remove it from your list of items needing review".

 

Because I had to develop a method of going through these queued up records - a method which became somewhat automatic - I wondered why RM couldn't incorporate a more efficient, automatic process of its own.  I understand the developers are hesitant to do that.  But if there's a downside to such automation, I'm wondering if I'll trigger whatever that downside is when I do the same automatic type of thing more slowly.

 

I will try to remember to do this TreeShare comparison at least once every day when I work in RM.  I'm curious.  Do other people do it after each and every update they make in RM?  To me, that would be burdensome, because sometimes I make multiple updates in one action.  For example, when copying children into RM from Family Search.

 

Thanks again for spending time helping me understand what I'm doing!

 

       Tom Cluster

[Jerry Bryan]

One problem I have discovered is that notes in RM that include carriage returns will never match the same notes in ancestry. For example, create a new RM database with only one person. Enter a note with two paragraphs separated with a carriage return. It can be an individual note or a fact note. Use TreeShare to copy this tiny little database up to a new ancestry tree. Your one person in RM doesn't match your one person in ancestry, even though you just did a fresh upload of your whole RM database.

Somewhere in the ancestry API that is used by RM's TreeShare feature to copy data to ancestry, the carriage returns are lost. But I have about 60,000 people in my RM database. Immediately after a fresh upload, nearly every one of them has a mismatch. And I can even do a manual one at a time sync to try to fix this problem. RM says that it did the copy, but the data still doesn't match.

 

Jerry

[Jerry Bryan]

The manual sync design of RM is praised by some RM users because it's safe as compared to an automatic sync that can cause data corruption. The same design is criticized by other RM users because it's so labor intensive.

 

My own view is that the data model supported by RM and the data model supported by ancestry are so different that it's really hopeless truly ever to sync, whether it be automatic or manual. Therefore, I think the best way to use TreeShare is only in one direction. Either use RM as your master file and use TreeShare only to copy up to ancestry, or use ancestry as your master file and use TreeShare only to copy down to RM. I think that in either of these environments, it should be fairly safe to support an automated copy. The data won't truly match between RM and ancestry because it's impossible to make it match. But there are still significant benefits to be gained from TreeShare even when it is used only in one direction.

 

Jerry

[Rooty]

how do you trigger treeshare to auto update from rootsmagic to ancestry?

[TomH]

how do you trigger treeshare to auto update from rootsmagic to ancestry?

 

It seems you have not read or understood the discussion. There is no such capability in RM7.5. And there has been no hint yet of it in the demos of RM8.

[Rooty]

OK, although Jerry's post mentioned both auto and manual. So how do you trigger manual sync from RM up to Ancestry?

[TomH]

"Sync" is not even in the RM vocabulary except for it being "Sync Certified" by FamilySearch. TreeShare supports copying an entire RM database to a new Ancestry Member Tree or the reverse, an AMT to a new RM database. That pairing of an RM database and an AMT is a TreeShare connection. From that point forward, changes in one can only be manually updated to the other, one person at a time. There is nothing more to it. It is succinctly described in the Help system under "TreeShare for Ancestry" and in various videos.

[Jerry Bryan]

In the case of TreeShare, I tend to speak of automatic sync and manual sync as a way to try to explain how it works. Tom is correct that sync is not in the RM vocabulary. Initially, there is a full and automatic copy - the "automatic sync", except it's really an automatic copy. Subsequently, you have to individually approve each piece of data to be copied - the "manual sync", except it's really a manual copy and it's copying one piece of data at a time.

 

Jerry