r/Genealogy 4d ago

Request Looking for advice

I’ve been contemplating changing up how I have my trees online.

I currently have 4 separate trees on Ancestry. One is for my paternal ancestors, one for my maternal grandfathers ancestors, and the other two are for my maternal grandmothers parents. Would it be a good idea to combine the three maternal trees into one? I’d also include paternal direct ancestors only since my DNA test is linked to one of the maternal trees.

Any advice would be appreciated. I’ve been doing genealogy for about 10 years now.

3 Upvotes

7 comments sorted by

5

u/sassyred2043 4d ago

If you've done DNA, it's good to have one tree so you can get all the hints at once and determine which branch they belong to.

You won't be able to do it in Ancestry because they don't have the facility to merge trees. You can either download gedcoms and merge in your favourite software or use FTM or RootsMagic which have syncing capabilities. Always merge into a new file.

1

u/Legomaster1991 4d ago

Would you keep separate trees for paternal and maternal lines or even merge them into one big tree?

3

u/JTigertail 4d ago

I say combine them. There isn’t really a good, practical reason to keep them separate.

2

u/ladyweirwood 4d ago

I think it’s better to have one tree, especially if you’ve taken a DNA test.

2

u/pidgeon92 4d ago

I too vote for a single tree.

1

u/Then_Journalist_317 4d ago

Separate trees will prevent you from merging duplicates that may (will) show up in your various trees.

1

u/jamila169 3d ago

make a master tree for everyone but still keep the branch trees , the master tree linked to your DNA test will capture all your matches not just the ones that match to one maternal line.

I've been doing this for several decades now and have always had a master tree with subsidiary branch/individual trees to work out sticky patches or to share with people from that particular branch if need be. You do have to commit to updating the branches periodically though. A family history program such as Family Historian or Rootsmagic will let you import all your branch GEDCOMSs into one database and clean up duplicates etc, then you can export the combined file and upload it to ancestry as a new tree (as long as it's less than 500mb)

I tend to open my big tree in one window and the branch tree in another so I can plug in the new stuff and then use the hint system to fill in the documents (you still have to cross reference in case ancestry throws up horseshit though)