How do I manage a family tree both on personal Family Treemaker software AND on Ancestry.com?

Question

I created a family tree on Ancestry.com. I like using Ancestry.com and I like the fact that the family tree is public and available for others to use for research. I like the fact that I can invite family members to have access to the tree and to add info to it. However, as the size of the tree and amount of valuable info grew, I felt the need to save the tree on my personal computer and so I purchased Family Treemaker software to do that. Now I have a quandry. Do I expand my tree on ancestry.com and download it periodically into my Family Treemaker file, or vice versa? It doesn't seem as easy as I expected to share info back and forth from Family Treemaker to Ancestry.com. Any hints on how to do that efficiently?

Answer 1

Your best bet is likely to be a gedcom file that you can import/export as needed.

FamilyTree maker has more options and you can use it offline so I would keep that as my main database.

Answer 2

I have both a subscription to Ancestry &  Family Tree Maker.  Since you have your tree on both my suggestion would be to make a gedcom file of the most complete & accurate one and download it into the one that is less complete.  After that as you add to your tree(s) just make sure to update them both.  I have over 2800 names on my trees and have been working on them for over 5 years now.  Both Ancestry & FTM have unique properties that I use so I keep both.  I think it's easier & faster to go from FTM to Ancestry that from Ancestry to FTM.  By the way, I've found that sometimes you get better search results when you search Ancestry.com FROM Family Tree Maker, don't know why, but sometime the results are more complete.  Good Luck