FamilySearch Archives

How To Export a FamilySearch GEDCOM with RootsMagic

If you want to get a free copy of your FamilySearch family tree to upload to another program or website (Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc) you'll need to use one of FamilySearch's partner programs to get this data. Each of these partners, Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree, and RootsMagic has a free version you can use to export a FamilySearch family tree and create a GEDCOM file, a format universally used for sharing family tree files.

Here's FamilySearch's statement:

"Currently we are not able to export data from Family Tree to a GEDCOM file. Use one of the Family Tree certified programs, i.e. Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree, or RootsMagic to import data from Family Tree into one of the programs and then create a GEDCOM."

First, you'll need to download a free version of RootsMagic.

At rootsmagic.com and in the header menu, select Downloads, then select Trial Vers…

Is Your Tree Well-Sourced? A Free Visual Check Using a Fan Chart

FamilySearch has a Fan Chart display mode you can use as a visual aid to see if your tree has source citations for each person. The tree is color-coded; the darker the color, the more source citations. This is a great tool to help you see which family lines need more research and sourcing.

FamilySearch family trees are community-owned trees that anyone can change. That makes one person's research vulnerable to the human error of all others but can also make for a better-researched tree with multiple contributors.

A Well-Sourced Tree at FamilySearch

This is my husband's family tree. The color key for this chart is:

darkest orange color represents people with 10+ source citationsmedium orange represents 5-9 source citationslight orange represents 1-4 source citationswhite represents 0 (zero) source citations

As you can see from his tree, most of his tree is well-sourc…

Quick & Dirty Family Trees for DNA Matches

Genealogists often build Quick & Dirty family trees (Q&D trees) for DNA matches who don't have linked family trees or for DNA matches whose trees aren't complete enough to help determine the family relationship. I don't have the patience to build a tree for each tree-challenged DNA match, so I use a shortcut.

Disclaimer.

I'm a hobbyist. My husband is a professional in the industry. Professional Genealogists probably consider this a very low-brow method partially because I'm using a public family tree that I didn't personally research and because the FamilySearch tree will have errors. When I research with my husband, he hands me a stack of these papers and tells me, "Document everything, especially failures." This isn't that; it's not original research. That's why the title includes the words "find" and "quick and dirty." I ain't doing the work. To some pros, this method is akin to dum…