Download your Ancestry tree as a GEDCOM file
Ancestry lets the owner of a tree export it as a GEDCOM file in a few clicks. When you have the file, drop it here to see the whole tree, print it or turn it into a spreadsheet.
The steps
Open your tree on Ancestry, click the tree’s name at the top left and choose Tree Settings. On the Tree Info page, press Export Tree on the right. Building the file can take a few minutes for a large tree; when it is ready, press Download your GEDCOM file.
What you get
A GEDCOM 5.5.1 file with everyone in the tree, their facts, relationships, notes and sources. Photos, stories and DNA matches are not included. Only the owner of a tree can export it. The download sometimes comes as a .zip — it opens here as it is.
Then
Drop the file above. You can walk through the tree, print charts and a family history book, find people entered twice, hide living people before sharing, or save it as Excel or GEDCOM 7 for another program.
Questions
- The Export button is not there.
- Only the tree’s owner sees it. If someone shared the tree with you, ask them to export it.
- Can I put my tree back on Ancestry after changing it?
- Yes: save it here as GEDCOM 5.5.1 and upload it to Ancestry as a new tree.