Question

How can I easily add around 7,000 more people to my tree?

Comments

It took me almost a year, but they were all manually entered.

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Thank You Tom I guess I better get started, I have a ton of info to add, since I started this tree

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Agree with Abby, also manually entering gives the opportunity to correct/update profiles - I had a major wrong connection which with the help of an experienced WT member I have now corrected, so I am well pleased and it is good to know that in a small way I am contributing to cleaning up profiles good luck ...

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Keep in mind that the size limit we recommend on GEDCOMs (no more than about 2,000 or 3,000) isn't about technical limitations. Before we realized how disastrous it was, when we first set up the system, we let someone import a 50,000-person gedcom. The disaster comes in the harm in does the community. One person can't manage that many profiles. They can't do the merges, they can't do the maintenance, and they can't even approve Trusted List and merge requests so that others can do the work. See http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/GEDCOM_FAQ#Is_there_a_size_limit.3F for the explanation there. Seven thousand is not totally unmanageable, but it's a very large Watchlist.

Answer 1

I had talked to Chris about this at one point, and I think we had discussed making sure that those 7000 people weren't already on wikitree. I know in my case, some were, some weren't, so I was going to create a gedcom that only contained those people, so that we weren't left with a whole new slew of merges to execute. Chris, I would imagine, would have to approve it first. Otherwise, manually is the only way, but that does give you a chance to see if that person already exists and link into the tree, eliminating some work.

Comments

We're working on something cool: A GEDCOM matching tool. You'll be able to upload a gedcom without having it immediately processed. Instead, you'll get to run a FindMatches on it and see how many of the people already exist on WikiTree. You'll even be able to select people and family lines that you don't want to import. That is, you'll be able to import a partial gedcom. It will be super cool.
Unfortunately this system won't be able to handle a 7,000-person file. It has to show all the names and all the matches on one results page. The web browser couldn't handle that for more than 3,000 or 4,000, even if the person could.

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Is this matching tool ready yet? I learned about and came to WikiTree due to an article in the Eastman genealogy newsletter. It made it sound like such a tool was already available, but I haven't seen reference to it until this post above from August.

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That is wonderful news!  I do a mix of hand-keying and importing of my information depending on where it's sources from.  I have about 5200 individuals in Family Tree Works at this point, and when I get through a significant block of folks, I export no more than 100 at a time to import on here.  Doing it this way is a bit cumbersome, but allowes me to merge any duplicates at a comfortable pace.  

Being able to knock duplicates out before the profiles are created would save a lot of time for me!  

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Jillaine, the pre-import matching tool is not yet available. We're still working on it. You may have seen reference to FindMatches. If not, let me know the Eastman article so I can post a correction.

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For the people who come across this question: the GEDMatches feature is now available (and has been for several months). You can now upload a GEDCOM and see matches to existing WikiTree profiles before importing. :)

Answer 2

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to add a thousand plus of ancestors to the family tree.  What I do is to focus on the first 3 generations by collecting every record possible to validate all their birthdates, birthplaces, spouses, maiden surnames, children, death index or death record, burial place if any or if cremated. Then proceed with the next three generations, and so forth.  Quality and accuracy are the most essential part of genealogy.

Comments

This is a wonderful answer and encourages me with regard to this website.

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Yes, it is much more satisfying than reading "I'm the 13th grandson of king so and so, please tell me how cool I am."  Only to then read someone else say, "Your 8th step is wrong."

Quality over quantity.