Moving Sources from Ancestry.com to the FamilySearch Family Tree

I had several people today ask me how to move sources from Ancestry.com to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. To do this you need to have an LDS Account and have signed into Ancestry.com from your LDS Account on FamilySearch.org. Once you have signed into Ancestry.com with your LDS Account, if you have completed the process properly, you should be able to click on your name in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and see something like the following:

You can see where it says LDS-Ancestry Membership. If it says anything else, then you haven't signed up completely or correctly and should carefully go through the registration process again.

Note: My examples are all from the new version of Ancestry.com. The process is the same with the older version, but the older version will shortly be discontinued and so I have chosen to show the newer version of the program. In the older version there is a link that says, "Connect to FamilySearch."

If you were properly registered, Ancestry.com asked you if you would like to import up to four generations of your family from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Because you cannot take advantage of the automated record hints without a family tree, this is a good idea. What is not a good idea is importing an entire GEDCOM file from another program. It is a better idea to let Amazon find sources for your ancestors and build your family tree from those sources. If you do decide to upload an entire GEDCOM file, be prepared to find out that some of the information you have in your file may contradicted by the sources found by Ancestry.com.

Once you have you basic information in an Ancestry family tree, you can start clicking on shaky green leaves and adding sources. If you want to transfer the sources you have attached to your ancestors and relatives, you need to connect each one to the Family Tree. This screenshot shows the link from an individual to the Hints and to the Family Tree connection:

Once you have some sources for this person to add to the Family Tree, you click on the little tree icon at the top of the page. You may be asked to sign in to FamilySearch.org again. Once you sign into Family Search, you may also be asked to choose a match to a person in the Family Tree. The tree icon will then change to either a check mark or a caution symbol. The caution symbol just means that Ancestry cannot get the ordinance data from the Family Tree. Then you will get a drop down menu like this:

You then click on the link that says "Compare person on FamilySearch." You will then get a screen with the information about your ancestor or relative on the left in the Family Tree and what you have about that person on the right in the Ancestry family tree.

You can then scroll down and compare the two entries. You can click in the boxes to move an entry from the Family Tree over to Ancestry or from Ancestry to the Family Tree. When you click to save the changes, they will be saved to which ever one you indicate.

That is how you move sources and other data from one to the other of these two programs.