Ancestry gedcom too big...help

Question

Is there a reasonably simple way  to upload a large Ancestry gedcom. Error message says too large. The answer by Ancestry was to duplicate tree, then remove a large amount of people. I have thousands...

Answer 1

It’s best to start small, just two or three generations.  That lets you get a feel for the process and will help you decide whether to enter people manually or through the Gedcom/Gedcompare process.  Since you have a lot of people in your tree once you get back to the 1800s you will probably find that many of them already have profiles here and all you will need to do is connect.

Answer 2

I looked for instructions for downloading a gedcom from Ancestry. Apparently the only option is to download the whole file. The instructions say you will usually get all the sources and notes. You will not get any images: this is because a gedcom is a text file.

You will need to upload the gedcom into a genealogy program, and split the gedcom from there. That means you will export your file as a series of gedcoms from there. For example starting with a grandparent, you would theoretically get only a quarter of your file, since you have four grandparents. If that is still too big, then start with a great grandparent, and you will theoretically get 1/8 of your original file.

Then you go through the process to upload these gedcoms one at a time.

Plan on a lot of work.

Note Kathie’s answer. She gives some good advice.

Answer 3

I have a very large Ancestry tree but decided to manually put my tree into WikiTree.  One reason is that it makes me look closer at my resources and evidence for each person's relationship to another, rather than just "Aunt Sally told me." WikiTree is source-centric, which makes it more trustworthy.

Another reason to not upload a large gedcom is that it tends to create many duplicates in WikiTree which then have to be merged with existing profiles.  I didn't have to add many new profiles before finding existing profiles for members of my family tree.  At that point, you can fill in whatever information is missing and add missing family.