* Media Files to Ancestry

[d_c_weber]

I have started attaching media files, like portraits of people, to FH.
I have also exported my GEDCOM to Ancestry.com, so that others can see my tree.
Is there a way that I can fairly easily get the media files that are already linked in the FH tree and paste them to the appropriate person on the Ancestry tree?

I suppose that another way to do this is that I have a cloud server. I could put all of my media files in a folder there, and then put a hyperlink in FH record as a note. At least that way others viewing Ancestry could tag the hyperlink and pull up the media image.

Any best practices anyone can suggest?

Regards, d_c_Weber

[tatewise]

Few (if any) online family tree products offer a way of uploading Media in bulk.

In most cases, it will involve a manual process of either uploading one image at a time, or as you propose adding a URL one at a time.

Are you aware of the Export Gedcom File Plugin that transforms the FH GEDCOM into a dialect that better matches the target product? It has specific settings for Ancestry.
FindMyPast does have a multiple Media ZIP file upload feature that sometimes works.
BUT are you aware of the copyright issues associated with putting images online?

BTW: Are you aware of the privacy issues of putting the details of living people online?
There are tools to help you hide such sensitive details.
See how_to:exporting_gedcom_with_multimedia#export_to_website_without_sensitive_data|> Export to Website Without Sensitive Data.

If you need any further more detailed advice then do ask.

[d_c_weber]

Mr. Tate:
Thanks for the fast response. I also wasn't aware of any of these things.

So, if I wanted to send a GEDCOM to Ancestry and get pictures sent too, let's use an example:
I have an ancestor Walter Edmund Weber. A picture of him is https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/955 ... 188534126 here. This picture is a media jpg image in the FH folder for photographs, people.
So, what is the best way of getting this picture onto the family tree that I have for Walter Edmund Weber https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/pe ... 9439/facts. There is a place on the tree to have linked media images. They call it "Gallery". Do I have to paste these in one at a time onto every page of the Ancestry.com pages for my tree called KWEBER?
If so, what happens later when my FH tree gets updated? So, say a year from now I want to update the GEDCOM on Ancestry.com. Will this wipe out all of the media that I hand paste in one by one. If so, this will create a lot of work if I have to re-paste in hundreds of images to Ancestry every year.

p.s. I forgot how I exported my GEDCOM for Ancestry. I doubt that I used a plugin. But, it seems to be OK, except for the media thing.

Regards, Dave Weber

[tatewise]

The first thing to check is the copyright of that picture of Walter. It is covered by the Terms and Conditions 5. Content Used in the Services at https://www.ancestry.com/cs/legal/terms ... ontentUsed.
Do you have the right to publish it online?

My understanding is that you will have to upload and link each image separately.
I suspect that when you upload again you will have to repeat that process.

There may be an alternative technique that might simplify the process.
Checkout how_to:import_from_ancestry#media_images|> Import from Ancestry website > Media Images.
The free RootsMagic Essentials offers a TreeShare for Ancestry capability that synchronises their trees including Media in either direction. So if you export from FH to RootsMagic and TreeShare with Ancestry you may achieve your objective automatically.

I am surprised you have not noticed any missing data in the Ancestry tree.
The kind of things that may be missing are: custom Attributes, fact Age and Address values, some Notes, etc.
The Export Gedcom File Plugin makes the necessary corrections for those data types.
It has settings for many products including Ancestry and RootsMagic.

Finally, what are you doing about the privacy of living people data?
You are not allowed by law to publish their details online without their express permission.

[Mark1834]

If you re-export to RootsMagic, the Ancestry sync will regard it as a new tree. To keep continuity in Ancestry, you have to maintain the same RootsMagic database and update it from your new export by comparing the two databases and individually updating changed records.

It’s clunky, but it does work. However, there’s a lot of discussion on the RootsMagic equivalent to this forum about how unreliable the database comparison tool can be.

[Mark1834]

Another comment - it never ceases to surprise me how many people upload copyrighted material as Ancestry images, particularly pictures of GRO certificates, census returns, and other such documents. Ancestry seem to turn a blind eye to it (cynically, more traffic to their site, more chance of new subscribers, etc). And hand on heart, if I see such a certificate for somebody who’s in my database as well, do I note the details without ordering my own copy? Of course I do, but I don’t mine images of people - irrespective of copyright, they are unverified data, so how do I know they are who they are claimed to be?

[tatewise]

Mark's comments are obviously from somebody who is familiar with RootsMagic.
Even if RootsMagic and Ancestry create a new tree for each export, Dave only plans to do that once a year, and the bulk automatic migration of Media saves a lot of manual effort. Discarding the old tree is probably no great loss.

[Mark1834]

Agree, for that purpose it is fine. However, if you want to exploit Ancestry hints you have to do by compare and update, otherwise each refresh resets your record of viewed hints and starts again. A typical 1000 person tree can easily generate 5-10,000 hints over time!

[d_c_weber]

Mark, and Mike:
Thanks for the lead. So, RootsMagic Essentials is a freeware that and I can export from FH --> RootsMagic. Then, export a second time RootsMagic --> Ancestry.com, and then delete my old tree on Ancestry.
Sounds easy-peasy.
So, when I export to Rootmagic, does both the GEDCOM and the media go as one package, and then the same when I send to Ancestry.com to create a new tree.

Regarding living people, how do I find out if other people can see my living people on my Ancestry tree? Doesn't Ancestry hide the info of the living automatically?
For instance, my record is here. Can you see my info? : https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/pe ... 9430/facts

Regards, Dave Weber

[tatewise]

To export from FH to RootsMagic use the Export Gedcom File Plugin.
See plugins:help:export_gedcom_file:export_gedcom_file|> Export Gedcom File Plugin for details.
Download the Plugin from the Plugin Store as advised in plugins:about|> About Family Historian Plugins.

After running the Plugin it will create an Export folder within your Project's Public folder.
That will contain a GEDCOM file and Media files to import into RootsMagic.
See plugins:help:export_gedcom_file:rmt_roots_magic_tree|> Export Gedcom File ~ (RMT) Roots Magic Tree for details.

Then use the TreeShare for Ancestry feature in RootsMagic, but I don't know the details, so maybe Mark can help.

If you trust Ancestry to keep those tree details private then that is your risk, but I still think it courteous to let living people know. There is also the matter of image copyright to consider.
Have you checked the Ancestry Terms & Conditions?

[ColeValleyGirl]

Ancestry sets people to private those people it can determine are living -- but it can't always determine that, so you do need to conider what it will display.

Exhibit A: My tree

HS W and llr are living people

[Mark1834]

Personally, I'd rather keep my detailed research and information about living and other private people off Ancestry completely. I use a dedicated Python script that extracts bare bones information from my tree (just who, when, and where of key details such as birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial, probate, census - converted to residence - etc) with no sources or media. All living and other individuals marked as private (e.g. recently deceased or potentially sensitive 20th century illegitimate births) are excluded completely, as is any mention of families of such people. You could probably do the same thing with FH plugins, but the advantage of the script for me is that it runs an identically defined extract every time with just a single desktop double-click.

This basic GEDCOM file is imported to RootsMagic as a new database, and compared with my master RootsMagic copy for differences. After updating the RootsMagic master copy, it is synced with my Ancestry tree (see viewtopic.php?f=40&t=16318 for a fuller discussion).

I'm afraid I have no experience of exporting a full FH database to RootsMagic or syncing that with Ancestry. I need to use the paid version (less than £20) for all the features I need, but I think the free version also does the basic Ancestry sync so should be suitable for initial experiments at least.

[d_c_weber]

Helen:
Thanks.
On your https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/ ... familyview the following people are private:
242090652894 [says "private"]
242120508501 [says "private"]
242090652122 [is a "blank" box, & after opening profile, says this person living]
242090652212 [says "private"]
242090652145 [says "private"]

So, I assume that when you look at this tree, you see the details of everyone (including the 5 above) and, when I (or anyone else), view the record, I just see "private".
And that 120 years after the birth, the details of each person in this DB on Ancestry will appear to everyone.

And when you open my hyperlink below, you can't see my birthday, and it says private.

Is this correct?

Regards, Dave Weber

[ColeValleyGirl]

242090652894 is me.

I exported my Gedcom for Ancestry having anonymised all living people (with initials), and then uploaded it to Ancestry.

I then added a few extra living people (myself, a half-sibling and their parent, again with initials) to help with DNA investigation.

Can you see https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/ ... 2145/facts

[Mark1834]

Bear in mind that does not fully protect living people. You might be private, but if full details of deceased parents are provided, it’s fairly easy to identify their children from public records, particularly if the tree says how many there are and their gender. I would now have a name, age, rough place of birth and mother’s maiden name. If they are over 50 years old I could get the full birth certificate without providing any further information. From there, work down through any siblings, marriage records, children, etc.

That may be a price you are prepared to pay, but have you checked it is ok with everybody in your tree? Identity theft is all about piecing together the clues...

[Mark1834]

Sources reveal more unintended data - the source for Jane Smith's death, burial or probate will probably give her married name, hence another potential easy lead into finding children....

This has actually given me food for thought on my own public tree - I will delete all references to first cousins and spouses of my parents' siblings, even if they have been dead for decades. For aunts and uncles (most of whom were born over a century ago, and all are deceased), it will just say when and where they died, not what their name on death was or whether they had any children or not. To maintain access to their hints system, I will keep all these recent deceased ancestors in a separate private and unlisted tree. All living people will stay off completely (apart from my own DNA profile).

If anybody contacts me over a possible family link, I will release further details only to them if I am satisfied that there is a potential link. With 20:20 hindsight, I should probably have uploaded separate trees for my mother and father, as there is no overlap between them, but it's too late to rework all that now.

[jimlad68]

When it works, I find the Ancestry restriction of private for 100 (or is it 120) years after birth too restrictive. Although I do my best to avoid the potential hassle of showing living people **, I have a few instances where I want to display names; for that I just give a death date way in the future, say 2999, and Ancestry shows the details I upload.
The only sure way to exclude people on Ancestry, is not to put them there. What I do is make them private before I create the Gedcom file, that way there is a skeleton tree of connections.

For those who keep a "live working" tree on Ancestry it is very difficult, as from my past experience, it is important to have a valid date of birth and nothing in the death date. Ancestry might have fixed this, but after pointing out this problem some time ago, they seemed in no rush then.

** For my part I can't understand why putting up "already publicly available online information" should be a problem, it can't be for privacy reasons if the data is already online!

[d_c_weber]

Helen:
i can't see anything on the link for the spouse of Helen Ethel Wright d. 2013, except the following:
Private
BIRTH Unknown
DEATH Living

So, we are protected for privacy.

Regards, Dave Weber

[Mark1834]

Dave - probate gives married surname, which identifies marriage and husband name, so we have already identified the "private" record. It's then easy to find their daughter, her marriage, and two daughters born in the mid-1960s, none of whom are on the tree.

You could do the same with my public Ancestry tree. Although there is nobody on there (even as a private entry) born since the 1930s apart from myself and no sources at all, it wouldn't be difficult to follow some of the entries through to living people today.

Whether anybody would actually go to that trouble is debatable, but the point I am making is that any disclosure of a public tree can compromise privacy, and "privatising" entries is really just a fig leaf. I'm not suggesting we all retreat into our bunkers, but just that we make proper risk-based decisions on what we publish.

Jim - I'll challenge your last point. If I discover that my late Aunt Mary or Uncle John had an illegitimate child before their wedding, am I right to publish that information if their still-living children are unaware that they have a half-sibling, even if I know that the child is no longer living? All the data are in the public domain already, but I have provided additional information by interpreting it. Data and information are not the same thing.

[LornaCraig]

I know for a fact that Ancestry cannot be relied on to privatise the details of living people. I know of a tree which displays the names and exact dates of birth of three siblings, all of whom are still living. As far as I can tell, the tree owner is only very remotely connected to them and has no personal knowledge of them. Ironically I think the information came from one of Ancestry's own 'hints'. The source cited is a ship's passenger list. I think Ancestry probably gave a 'hint' that the parents (who are deceased) were in the passenger list. But their three children are also in the list, complete with their exact dates of birth, so the tree owner added them to the tree. Ancestry has done nothing to privatise them.

[jimlad68]

Mark - I did say "already publicly available online information", even so I would agree that in some cases sensitivity is desirable, especially as you say with interpretations.

Lorna, agreed, seems to add to/match my scenarios.