Home DNA AncestorShould you Upload your GEDCOM File?
Should you Upload your GEDCOM File?

Should you Upload your GEDCOM File?



Have people told you to upload a GEDCOM file? (or have you told others to do the same?) Well, you shouldn’t, for a number of reasons.

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18 thoughts on “Should you Upload your GEDCOM File?

  1. A billion people is not a lot… there have been nearly 200 billion people who have lived. So there’s only a 0.5% chance the ancestor you are looking for is there.

  2. Family search is awful

  3. Timewars says:

    Your facial expressions crack me up

  4. Thank you for sharing this, so many people ask me how to upload a gedcom to familysearch family tree. Those that do are always upset afterward. I usually advise against it

  5. dlwatib says:

    Another reason for not uploading gedcom files to FamilySearch.org is that the website is used best by creating the tree one hint at a time. That way the tree gets documented with all the proper source documents. If you upload an old gedcom file, it very likely didn't have a lot of source citations, and even if it did, it was almost certainly just citations and not copies of the actual documents themselves. The reason FamilySearch.org is the best tree around is that it is directly linked to so many source documents, all for free! Where it gets off into the weeds is generally at the tips of the tree where the data runs out.

  6. Hi there. Thank you for your video. How do I look up to see if my family is already in there without having to upload anything? What's their website? Thanks a bunch

  7. Hi, I'm just curious, what significance does genealogy have to people of the church of LDS. Reasons other than those other people have. I ask because I've heard mention of the church multiple times in connection to family trees.

  8. The problem is that GEDCOM is not a "standard". It's more of a guideline that gives software makers a lot of leeway in their final product, usually depending on a desired price point. Notes, sources and descriptions are the best examples of the chaos it can bring.

  9. If I export a GedCom from my software (GRAMPS) date formats are changed from what I use (ISO standrad example 1977-10-03) to american standard (Oct 03 1977) and I cant do anything about it.

  10. MD Harris says:

    Right on man. This is right on target. I had to revolutionize the way I do genealogy now. Getting beyond the gedcom files is getting beyond the breakers so I can get off the Island of Gedcom files and do family history that has never been done before on Family Search. I have an approach that blends technology with traditional methods, and I have been successful.

  11. Scot Inman says:

    Devon is a pain in the ass to watch

  12. When my parents were doing genealogy back in the 90's, they were instructed by the church to keep their own records which I thought at the time was backwards, if they were really interested in promoting genealogy. They could of had only one database that everyone has access to. But to have the database updated, the information would have to go through rigorous examination to make sure there were no duplicate or errors. That way everyone could submit information to make light work for everyone, and only one database that everyone has access to. It sounds like everyone is still being taught to squirrel away their own information.

  13. I hate the way anyone can change your tree on FamilySearch.Org.

  14. I made that mistake. The first annoyance was it wanting me to go through 9k people and check them against what was in the tree, but half of the "duplicates" it was showing my had nothing to do with what was in my tree. So, I did a few and gave up for the night. Then, I get up in the morning, and someone has deleted several of the ancestors that I confirmed as not having a duplicate. They claimed I was messing them up and stealing their research, but my person was "Mary Lamb, born 1850" and their person was "Karen Lumb, born 1846" with completely different parents. And this same person went through my tree and deleted several people as duplicates. That had nothing to do with what was already there. Because they didn't even compare, they just got some notice or something that said they might have duplicates and told the system "yep, those new ones are all duplicates." And then a completely different person contacted me because I had a child of a couple that they didn't have, and even though I showed them an obituary, marriage record, census record and birth index with that child in it, they still insisted that it was wrong, even though one or both parents showed up on those records. So, I deleted my gedcom and only use familysearch to look up records and how to find things.

  15. Thank you both for the easy to understand information. Thoroughly enjoying your videos.

  16. R Shelhart says:

    Thanks for this video. I don't know nothing 'bout GEDCOM files!

  17. I uploaded my 23&me data onto my heritage, is that a gedcom file? I have no idea because it didn't say what type of file it is. I just clicked on download raw data. Also, is it better to upload your data as a zip file?

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