Did you hear? There is an update to RootsMagic 8 that fixes the TreeShare issues with large trees. For those that are unfamiliar with RootsMagic’s TreeShare, it is a way to synchronize RootsMagic data with a tree on Ancestry. For many users this is fantastic news.

I was fortunate in that I somehow managed to get my file of about 17,000 individuals connected to my Ancestry tree using my desktop computer in mid-October. Thus, I was able to continue to use Ancestry Hints as I did with RootsMagic 7. I’m not sure I would have patiently waited for this update if I hadn’t been able to make the TreeShare connection. However, my previous experiences kept reminding me that I do not want to start over with a new tree. For me, the consequences of creating a new tree means

• starting over accepting leaf hints
• impacting DNA results including common ancestors and ThruLnes
• waiting for tree to be indexed

For over a year, I blogged about struggling to get my tree indexed

• Update – Ancestry Indexing (19 Dec 2017)
• 2017 – What Did I Accomplish (1 Jan 2018)
• What Are Unsourced Citations on Ancestry (19 Jan 2018)
• Ancestry Indexing Update (5 Feb 2018)
• Ancestry Indexing Saga Continues (16 Apr 2018)
• Ancestry Indexing Update (30 May 2018)
• Tree Indexing Update (11 June 2018)
• Indexing Mystery (21 July 2018)
• Ancestry Indexing Update (20 Aug 2018)
• Sources (24 Sep 2018)
• Still Not Indexed (13 Oct 2018)
• Finally Indexed! But ? (11 Nov 2018)
• Indexing and DNA (18 Jan 2019)

I’m thankful that this recent update to RootsMagic 8 resolved the issue with large trees syncing with Ancestry. Unfortunately, I discovered a minor issue that will take major time to resolve. It seems that all of the people whom I had previously worked with and at some point clicked on the X to ‘Mark as Not Changed’ are now back in my list as ‘changed’.

Browsing thru the list of people in my file, I saw a lot of pink (meaning the information is different) for the sources. For example, one of my ancestors, Hannah, was married to a Smith. Her screen indicates that I need to update her name on Ancestry and that many of her sources are pink – i.e. different.

Clicking on one of those pink icons, I can compare the sources from RootsMagic to the sources on Ancestry. The only difference for the source attached to her birth fact is a comma.

Scrolling thru and looking at my ancestors, not only do I find a lot of pink sources but quite a few yellow places. Expanding the window to full screen allows me to see the difference in the places. My RootsMagic file has United States after the name of the state while Ancestry does not.

As I see it, I have the following options:

• Mark items like Hannah’s name to upload to Ancestry and accept changes
• Use the X to mark people like John Briles as ‘Not Changed’

OR — I can create a group for the Thompson families I’ve been working on recently and get them uploaded and then use the OPTION to ‘Clear Everyone From the Changed List’.

I think I’ll take the easy way and update my Thompson research and then clear everyone else.

NOTE: Yesterday, Randy Seaver posted a blog where he describes his TreeShare progress. Unlike Randy, I did NOT disconnect my tree. However, the steps Randy outlines in his blog to upload information from his RM file to Ancestry are the same steps I follow. See his post, RootsMagic 8 Version Progress in the Genealogy Cave.