AncestralFire · Get your file out
How to export your tree from Ancestry as a GEDCOM file.
On Ancestry, open your tree, choose Tree Settings, then Export tree, and download the GEDCOM file when it is ready. Only the person who owns the tree can export it, and Ancestry says you don't need a membership to download your own tree. The file arrives inside a zip file.
The steps, from Ancestry's help
- From any page on Ancestry, click the Trees tab and select a tree.
- In the toolbar on the left, click More (the three dots) and select Tree Settings.
- On the right side of the Tree Settings page, under Manage your tree, click Export tree. If you see Download your GEDCOM file, skip to the last step.
- Click Export. The button spins and says Generating a GEDCOM file.
- When it stops spinning, click Download Your GEDCOM File. The file is saved to your device, inside a zip file.
Good to know.
- Only the owner of a tree can export it. If a relative shared theirs with you, ask them for the file.
- Ancestry says a GEDCOM file holds the facts and information of a tree, but not photos or other media. Files made after November 2022 do hold where your media is kept on Ancestry, so Ancestry can relink it if you upload the file there again.
- Leave the zip file as it is: the free GEDCOM page below opens a zip that holds a GEDCOM file.
Then bring it in.
Choose the zip file as Ancestry gave it to you. Open it on the free GEDCOM page: your file is read in your browser, so you can look it over first. Then press Bring it into AncestralFire, and the file goes with you to make your account.