How do I get my GEDCOM source data into my matched WikiTree profiles?

Question

I’m very new here, and feel like I must be missing something about use of my GEDCOM., and am not find g the right WikiTree guide or tutorial. Here are the steps I’ve tried so far:

1) uploaded my GEDCOM, including sources for each individual.

2) ran GEDCompare report.

3) started to create individual profiles, including birth and death dates, places and family relationships, being sure not to duplicate existing WikiTree profiles.

4) matched my GEDCompare individuals to my new WkiTree profiles

5) ran the GEDCompare report again.

6) Checked my WikiTree profiles again, no sources, no way I can find to bring them in from GEDCOM, confused?

If it isn’t possible to populate my profiles from my GEDCOM, then I am unclear on the proper use of my GEDCOM. Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction!

Comments

I tested Gedcoms from several different places, and found that the only ones that reliably uploaded sources and filled in all the blanks were from Ancestry.  Roots Magic would not import sources, no matter what I did, for example.  Downloading my Gedcom from Ancestry to Roots Magic did not work.   Add sources from Family tree to Roots Magic did not work, ect....

HOWEVER, I also found out on Ancestry Gedcom imports that in order for those sources to come across to wiki from Ancestry, you need to have added cited sources on Ancestry, and when you added those sources to your tree, you needed to make sure "Include citation" was checked.  

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brinkman-580

Here is what that raw import looks like.    Now it is a bit of a mess, but if you go to the bottom of the source list, and look at the REPOSITORY information, you will see the Citations of the repositories that are used.

Example:

Source: S-2108870073 Repository: #R-2144795297 Social Security Death Index Ancestry.com Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2006.Original data - Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index, Master File. Social Security Administration.Original data: Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Inde Note:

When you go back to clean up, you can delete most of the junk, and reference your facts back to these Repository Citations, or preferably, find the same information on Family Tree, with a direct link to the item, an image, and a citation.

Maybe I should write a guide...

---

Wow, you've done some extensive testing, Wendy! Unfortunately, the Ancestry source URLs in that Brinkman profile you posted don't work. (Maybe they work for you, as owner of the tree, but links to domain trees.ancestry.com won't work for other Ancestry members.)

I've generated stable URLs for sources on Ancestry by copying the URL for the actual source document, on domain interactive.ancestry.com. There are also formats for links to search.ancestry.com that result in links that function from Wikitree.

---

Yes, the URL's don't work, but the Citations are valid.   Usually when I redo the profile, I use the citation to find the same record at Family Search.  I don't trust the URL's from Ancestry, it only works with their "free" record list.   I lost a bunch of stuff when they lost the licensing agreement with Kinship for their information.

---

Apparently you've mastered the art of filling in the export form on Ancestry.com, Wendy. That's advice worth sharing here.

As for Ancestry URLs, the vast majority of Ancestry URLs that people post here are useless, but I've found that URLs like https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/8800/005115900_00084 (a link to a document image, in this case an image of a will) are stable and useful. Ales Trtnik and others have reached the same conclusion for URLs like http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1920usfedcen&h=38165322&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt (a link to a US Census enumeration sheet), but I confess that I'm skeptical of the long-term stability of any URL that contains a search string. Links to images uploaded by members also seem to be stable if they are saved in a format like https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/tree/62534631/person/390134377379/media/f433075d-fe53-40c7-b17c-d9624ad2b033 -- but that image might disappear if the owner of tree 62534631 drops their Ancestry subscription.

---

Thanks Ellen, I hadn't really noticed that before.  Here is what learned  AFTER importing most of my Gedcom while doing my experiments.  

All the fields in an Ancestry Source can be edited.   When you open an Ancestry Source, there is a menu on the left that includes Citation Details, Associated Facts, and Media.   

You can change all of the fields in these tabs.   If you have a Find a Grave Source, you can Add the web link to the Citation.   You can even put a Family Search link in there.

If you change the Associated Facts, you change how the import looks when it comes over to wiki.   Items with No associated Facts Wont be Imported.    Items will be referenced only to the facts they are associated with.

If you have an item listed under sources with NO citation, you aren't going to get one when you bring it over.

I have not experimented with what Wiki does with the Media tab information.

You CAN make a nearly perfect Ancestry Import.

---

Okay Ellen, I looked at some of the links Doug posted.

You and I together should write a guide on how to use Ancestry : )

Doing another experiment...

Answer 1

After you have accepted or rejected all of the matches GEDCompare, did you click on the "Add" button. You do have to go through this for each individual.

Comments

I'm tagging onto this question since I am having similar challenges with GEDCompare report. I did click the "Add" button, but the imported sources (mostly from ancestry.com) has links that go nowhere. A good example is my uncle Kent Yunker-199 (added using GEDCompare report) . . . is there anyway to improve how the sources are imported?

---

The rest of us can't see the profile for your uncle, due to the privacy setting for living persons who aren't members of this website. Do you have another example?

However, I have seen that many members import Gedcoms from Ancestry in which the URLs for sources refer to the domain trees.ancestry.com. After Ancestry reconfigured its URLs, all of those URLs stopped working. The content is generally still available on Ancestry, but at a new URL.

---

Perhaps you can view my aunt Phyllis Collier-3835 who is no longer living and see how the sources are imported.

---

I looked at your aunt's profile. Unfortunately the sources appear to be incomplete citations. They refer only to the databases on Ancestry and not to the record. This seems to be a common problem when importing from Ancestry. Also, the reference third from the bottom is a broken link to a generated Ancestry tree that only exists for a short time. Rather than the real tree.

perhaps someone else knows if there is a better way to do this but this is exactly what happened when I tried to import an Ancestry tree. I had better luck from a standalone program on my laptop.

---

It's pretty frustrating! 

---

it appears to me (as an Ancestry member who has never maintained a family tree there) that at Ancestry, the primary mechanism for citing a source seems to be to place a internal Ancestry link to an image of the source (or a link to an index record for a source that lacks an image) in a collection that's associated with the person's profile.  This appears to be satisfactory for a tree that's internal to the Ancestry website, but unfortunately the source citations don't export outside Ancestry. 

Wendy Fromme explained here what boxes need to be checked on the Ancestry export form to generate a Gedcom that will produce citations that document the citation in a format that appears in WikiTree something like "Source: #S-1798706465 The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; World War II Draft Cards (4th Registration) for the State of Michigan; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System, 1926-1975; Record Group Number: 147" where the long number is defined elsewhere as "U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 Ancestry.com Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.Original data - United States, Selective Service System. Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. National Archives and Records Administration Branch l Note:".

There have been a number of past G2G discussions on citing Ancestry sources. Some of the discussions from within the last few years are:

• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/438685/ancestry-com-sources
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/625422/what-is-proper-sourcing-from-ancestry-or-other-sites
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/386231/shortening-ancestry-links
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/231345/how-to-cite-ancestry-sources
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/317042/how-do-i-deal-with-long-urls-e-g-ancestry-com-search-urls
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/460333/hide-or-show-full-website-urls-in-sources
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/421847/trying-format-ancestry-wikitree-showing-biography-should
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/477354/dead-ancestry-links

---

Doug, thanks so much for your quick response - I am learning lots from the full discussion here,, but your quick response got me the simple solution to the obvious thing I had overlooked!

---

Thank goodness that Doug's answer resolved your issue, Eileen, because this discussion veered way off-topic after that...

---

Thank you for your answer. One of the things that I've found is that Ancestry has a tool that allows you to print original documents along with their index and source. This gives me a pdf source that I can upload. I was hoping there was a less labor-intensive way to export my tree from Ancestry. Oh well . . .