Help getting organised!

[Bob White]

Mark: You sparked my curiosity. Is FTM the only outside genealogy publisher who has been given such access? (If you happen to know...)

[Mark]

Bob,

As far as I'm aware, there are only two - FTM and RootsMagic.

[thomprod]

...If Ancestry.com chose to give us that access we would certainly consider implementing syncing.

Here's a related question that probably deserves its own thread, but I wanted to take advantage of the great minds and excellent suggestions in this one first. I uploaded a GEDCOM years ago to Ancestry.com to create a Public Member Tree, but don't update it, since I do all my work in Reunion now. I do occasionally use Reunion's "Search the Web" feature to find more sources or multimedia on Ancestry that I download into Reunion and add to existing records. I don't bother to update the Ancestry tree. I do like their "Hint" feature, but if I've already downloaded the hint info or multimedia file to Reunion, unless I save it to the corresponding person on Ancestry, the hint pops up again the next time.

I could delete my existing Ancestry Tree and then upload a new one by exporting a GEDCOM from Reunion (to post the most recent updated information I have in Reunion), but then I would get thousands of hints that Ancestry thinks are new, even though I've already reviewed them and downloaded what is worthy to Reunion. Wish there was a way to upload a new Tree on Ancestry and tell them to only show new hints that are caused by new sources added after the Tree was created.

[Bob White]

Easy answer based on the premise that you only use Ancestry for research and never as an active tree.... accept the hint as "Maybe" (an option you see for most hints). That will accomplish three things.

First, the item will not repeat as a hint.

Second, you avoid spending time actually updating the item to the Ancestry record.

Third, saying Maybe establishes a link between the clue and the record which means the clue will be easy to revisit in future if you have the need.

[VerityM]

you only use Ancestry for research and never as an active tree....

So Bob, as you suggested, I've downloaded FTM, selected manual syncing from Ancestry and all seems to have transferred fine, which is great! It's also showed me I much prefer working with Reunion interface, so I'm happy continuing with this as my primary tree.

However now I have a new (old) dilemma...to share or not to share? If you decide to accept a hint on Ancestry, eg a Census, it can throw new people up. At the moment it's easy to accept them, and add to your Ancestry tree, which you then sync to FTM if you've found another record which backs that up. If your Ancestry tree remains static, do you just follow that lead and enter it in Reunion? Can you just sync records between Ancestry and FTM, or does it have to be people and records?

Does that also mean you don't use an Ancestry Tree to help with DNA matching? These are questions I need to work out as I have DNA on Ancestry, 23andMe, as from last night Gedmatch, mainly to solve brick walls. Funnily enough, my only hard to find living Sicilan match I've found has been through 23andMe, and only because he listed some family names. If I hadn't put all the hard slog genealogy work in I never would have recognised one of the names and joined the dots.

Hope this hasn't been too confusing, but I've just downloaded a descendant report from FTM ( via Ancestry) and Reunion and it's interesting to see the differences. I now have to make the decision as to whether I upload that info to Ancestry or leave it as it is. I'm thinking the latter?