Recently I wrote about how I ripped 25,000 obsolete source citations out of my family tree. I did it in one place: the Sources tab of Family Tree Maker. And despite being such an enormous change, I had no problems.
It cut my tree's file size in half. I needed that! And I synchronized my tree with the one on Ancestry.com successfully. No problems at all.
That success made me a bit too bold. Recovering from my next decision took 4 days. And I still have a lot of collateral damage to fix, but nothing devastating.
NOTE: Before you tell me how much better your family tree software is, it can't do what FTM can do. Only this software lets me work on my tree on my computer and regularly synchronize my work with my public tree on Ancestry.com. My family tree needs to be shared!
Pushing that Button
I was happily updating source citations for vital records from 1809. I have a few hundred of them in my family tree. I need to update them because the Italian vital record website (Antenati) changed the URLs of every document. I began to notice along the way that attached to each Italian "repository" in my tree was an old URL. And each old URL does not work. That's no good.
Then I went and did a crazy thing. I did a search and replace for the bad part of the URL. As I clicked Replace, I quickly saw how massive a change this was. This one little edit affected thousands of media, citations, and people.
But I'd had good luck before, so maybe it'd all be fine.
As I clicked Replace in Family Tree Maker, I quickly saw how massive a change this was. Undo! Undo! Alas, it was too late. |
It wasn't. I started the sync process at 2:30 in the afternoon. Occasional status reports said my edit affected about 7,000 people, 5,000 media files, and 10,000 source citations. Then the progress reports ended. It was simply "analyzing changes" for hours. I set my computer not to go to sleep, and I went to bed.
When I checked my still-running computer in the morning, there were 2 messages:
- Family Tree Maker lost its internet connection, causing the sync to fail.
- FTM had identified 55 people with discrepancies, and it asked me how to handle them. I clicked "overwrite with information from FTM," but with the interrupted internet connection, it was too late.
I had to compact my file again, which takes about 90 minutes. Then I tried to sync again. It still failed. But it went a long way before calling it quits. It appeared to update all the citations, media, and people, but I guess it didn't finish.
I had to go to Plan B. I opened my backup file from just before the doomed search and replace. I began the sync process again. That meant that even this older file was vastly different than my online tree. Much like the last time, the process took 12 hours, and despite promising status reports, it failed.
I closed my file and compacted it, deciding to chat with FTM support in the morning. Brandon at FTM found that one (only one!) of my 57,114 people had gotten corrupted. He advised me to make note of her facts and delete her from my Ancestry tree. Then he said to close and compact my file again before attempting to sync.
This time it worked. I did the ill-fated search and replace on Friday afternoon. I was finally synchronized and ready to go late Sunday morning.
The Aftermath
The back-and-forth between FTM and Ancestry during the failed syncs broke several things. Now that my family tree is synchronized with Ancestry again, here's what I need to fix in my file:
- Lots of unrecognized addresses. I need to delete several of them because the people who lived there are no longer in my tree. But the rest belong in my tree. I can fix these for one person and choose to correct the error everywhere the address is found. I'll fix them as I spot them.
- 7,500 uncategorized media. Luckily I can select bunches at a time and categorize them at once. I fixed them in a few minutes. Media categories don't carry over to Ancestry.com, so these changes were not involved in my next sync.
- A small number of missing media. I have to retrieve them from my computer. Not a problem.
- Some marriage citations split in two: one citation for him and another for her. But they all have the correct updated URL that started this whole mess!
- Some people have duplicated facts—name, sex, birth, etc. I'll fix them as I find them.
A recent success with a big change to my family tree made me a bit cocky. Now I'm paying the price. |
That's what broke because of my sync woes. I've started to revisit the hundreds of 1809 source citations I updated at the end of November. But I won't fix them all in one session.
Lessons Learned
I've learned these lessons before! But I got cocky and need a reminder.
- Don't make huge changes all at once, no matter how lucky you feel. Handle big changes in smaller chunks.
- Save and compact your file after you finish one type of change, or a moderately sized batch of changes. Then,
- Sync your file before moving on to another type of big change.
My problem is that I work on my family tree full time. I make a ton of changes every day. I suppose as long as those changes don't affect 7,000 people, 5,000 media files, and 10,000 source citations, I might be alright. Onward!
We all learn by our mistakes no matter our age... I can just imagine the anguish you felt when you realized what had happened!
ReplyDeleteAmen! A hard lesson I also had to learn. Spread the word!
ReplyDeleteI have read your whole article and I have just one comment “Stop the Sync” use just one tree. Work from your desk top or on a commercial site. You will find you would be a happier genealogist with records, that are correct. Stop and don't cite again, unstable commercial sites that change addressing. The long and short of it is Ancestry, they have errors in records 80% of the time. I just use them for reading and then snagging the doc's that I hold in my desktop file. Doing this process, I find that my database of info., remains correct for others to read after I am long gone.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't the storage of your family tree on the Internet preserve and protect it? You are saying don't use the Internet for safe keeping?
DeleteRegarding the "Stop the Sync" comment, no, I need to share this project with everyone who has ancestors from the same Italian towns as I do. I work only in Family Tree Maker, and 99 percent of my tree is Italian families I pieced together thanks to the Antenati website. If I don't cite some of the facts, who's going to believe I'm right?
DeleteRegarding the "internet for sake keeping" comment, as I said, I do my work on my computer, but I want very much to display and preserve that work on Ancestry.com. I have all kinds of backups, as I've explained in a recent article, but having my latest work available on Ancestry is beyond important to me.
DeleteGlad LiveChat was able to identify the key problem so you could get everything back on track :)
ReplyDeleteWhat about Family Search?
ReplyDeleteA tree on Family Search is subject to every jamoke who wants to change what I've put together. The heck with them.
DeleteDiAnn, I learned from another genealogy person (Connie Knox) that you can also upload an untouchable version of your tree to FamilySearch. I will try to find that information if you're interested.
DeleteI am so sorry this happened to you! I have had several panicky moments hitting “escape” to try to stop such activity. Stop!! stop!! Stop!! Thx for the new warning & steps you took. Deep breaths. You rock! Thank u!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry that you had another sync catastrophe, but so glad that you are able to fix it. I'm still trying to fix mine and likely will still have a broke tree when they put me in the ground. And my tree is nowhere near the size of yours!
ReplyDeleteDiAnn, my comment was in regard to the comment of Anonymous13 December, 2022 10:04. Is he
ReplyDeleteor she right?
Possibly, but the procedure had already started, and I thought I might screw something up by hitting Esc. I'm not sure how far it had gotten.
DeleteI had problem getting my FTM to sync, then no help from the company. I haven't lost anything that I can tell but neither FTM nor Ancestry worked the way it once did. I was told having 39,000 was too large to handle and the issues were my fault. (I wasn't trying to make a load of corrections as you were. I was just working my norm.) Anyway, months later and they won't upload, sync,.... Starting new smaller program has only helped a little. FRUSTRATED>
DeleteI specifically asked if my 58,000-person tree was over some limit. He said there’s no limit and that I’m doing it the right way—editing only in FTM. If you ever see the screen to send a sync error report, do it. Then chat with them and they’ll have access to the error log.
DeleteI have tried to sync my huge FTM tree to Ancestry a few times with exactly the same results. One time I ended up with duplicate people that I had to remove. I now have my FTM program on my computer with another window open to my Ancestry tree and I do double entry onto my Ancestry tree while I work. My back up is manual with much cut and paste but at least I know what I have entered.
DeleteOh no! That's what I used to do years ago before they had a sync feature. My tree was a sapling back then.
Delete