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For the past years in my free time I have been dilligently creating a family tree using Family Tree Maker and using church records I have been able to trace all of my ancestors back to the early 17th century and some lines much further back. I wanted to share this information with my extended family in Portugal and was wondering what site would be best to upload the file so they could see the information as well.
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As far as I know, "Family Tree Maker" will be discontinued pretty soon, so I suggest to make a GEDCOM file as soon as possible and just save it for the time being.
Then when you decide which programme to continue with, tell your Family in Portugal to use the same one.
For instance, MyHeritage has a free version, with certain conditions. Like less than 250 people and less than 500 MB of storage.
You mentioned you used church records to add data in your family tree.
May I ask which church did you glean the data from?
Except for the GUI (which I really do not like) MyHeritage has a super means of data mining and has a very good search engine for European data.
So I use MyHeritage to do research, and then the LDS programme (Family Search) for other stuff that I want to get done.
Keep in mind, a GEDCOM file cannot be "looked at". It is only a means of genealogy data transfer, and some programmes do not accept GEDCOM files, or can not make one ...
Also, a GEDCOM file will not transfer "Living" people data.
As far as I know, "Family Tree Maker" will be discontinued pretty soon, so I suggest to make a GEDCOM file as soon as possible and just save it for the time being.
Family Tree Maker is not being discontinued. MacKiev bought the program from Ancestry in 2016 and came out with a new version in 2017. The new version was recently updated and is superior to the program Ancestry had developed. The sync feature is also better.
Also, if a software program you physically own is discontinued, the program continues to operate.
For the past years in my free time I have been dilligently creating a family tree using Family Tree Maker and using church records I have been able to trace all of my ancestors back to the early 17th century and some lines much further back. I wanted to share this information with my extended family in Portugal and was wondering what site would be best to upload the file so they could see the information as well.
As irman said, you need to create a GEDCOM. You can customize it to include which people you want to include, including living folks.
If it were me, I would make copies of the GEDCOM on thumb drives and just mail them to the people you want to share it with. You might be able to email it if the file is not too big.
The recipient will need a genealogy software program that can import the GEDCOM file. The GEDCOM allows different people to use different software and still use the GEDCOM.
I used the parish records from the town my parents were from as they have been uploaded online and are public, and most of my ancestors until the 18th century were from the same cluster of villages. Being that Portugal did not have any other religion than the Catholic Church, it made my job much easier. Early on, the Patriarch of Lisbon decreed that all marriages, baptisms and deaths be recorded, the fact that Portugal avoided modern wars on its territory and that archives in Lisbon were stored in an area of Lisbon unaffected by both the 1531 and 1755 earthquakes, means most records have survived.
I have already backed up my files into a GEDCOM, but I was hoping there would be a site where I could upload it in a user friendly format. I am part of a facebook group of my parents' hometown in Portugal which now has 1,800 other people (the town only has 2,000) and many of the individuals from there, particularly older ones have asked me for information. I am looking for a site where I could upload the GEDCOM so that it would appear online as a tree that could be accessed and easy enough to read for those who are not fluent in English.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned Wikitree. It is 100% free. Once you upload your GEDCOM, you will want to eventually add picture and other biographical details. They say:
"Our tree includes 16,815,106 profiles (3,928,179 with DNA test connections) edited by 510,655 genealogists from around the world."
There may be even a Portugal Project to which you could add your family.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned Wikitree. It is 100% free. Once you upload your GEDCOM, you will want to eventually add picture and other biographical details. They say:
"Our tree includes 16,815,106 profiles (3,928,179 with DNA test connections) edited by 510,655 genealogists from around the world."
There may be even a Portugal Project to which you could add your family.
I looked at wikitree, but I was reading that I could no longer upload my GEDCOM file into a tree, only to match it with people. It just seems like a lot of work to manually enter all of the individuals.
I looked at wikitree, but I was reading that I could no longer upload my GEDCOM file into a tree, only to match it with people. It just seems like a lot of work to manually enter all of the individuals.
You can upload your gedcom and you don't have to enter the details of each individual manually, if that's what you mean - but after uploading the gedcom, you do have to evaluate whether each individual in the gedcom is already in the database or not. If so, you have to merge them, and if not, you can then add them as a new person. All their details get added automatically when you do that, but only after you've said "no, this person doesn't match anyone else in the database" and clicked "add". Having to do that on every individual in your gedcom is indeed a lot of work if you have a big tree, but the idea is to increase the integrity of the data that gets added.
More importantly, if you don't want anyone to be able to edit your work, Wikitree and FamilySearch are not the right places to put your tree. If you don't mind that, FamilySearch might be good. Otherwise, maybe try: https://www.tribalpages.com/ - I've heard a lot of people like that.
Ancestry. You can create a free account, upload the files then invite your relatives to your tree. You give them whatever permissions you want. They will have to create free accounts as well, but no one has to pay any money. You can make your tree private too if you wish so that only you and those you invite can see it.
I looked at wikitree, but I was reading that I could no longer upload my GEDCOM file into a tree, only to match it with people. It just seems like a lot of work to manually enter all of the individuals.
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