TreeSync is proving problematic. In short, if your FTM database needs to be restored, you can't use TreeSync with your ancestry.com tree any more.

I had been looking forward to it because my ancestry.com tree had gotten stale; it was too much trouble to duplicate all my changes to my FTM tree in my ancestry.com tree. Automatic synchronization sounded great. It was easy to set up. Pictures took a day or more to catch up, and it wasn't findable in searches for a week or more, but it looked like a good way to go.

One day, I exited FTM after making a number of changes. As expected, it began to synchronize with ancestry.com. The synch suddenly stopped with a generic error message, and then FTM crashed. When I restarted FTM, it couldn't open my database. I could navigate to it and select it, but FTM would simply fail to open it, without explanation. It kept going to the screen you get when you're starting from scratch with no data.

I had a backup, but it was a few weeks old and I had made quite a few changes since then (of course). I was able to restore it successfully, but this left me with a dilemma.

The ancestry.com tree still said it was using TreeSync. It turns out that it would accept nothing but the database that created it. According to support, there was no way to have my restored database and the ancestry.com tree resynch with each other.

I could either try to remember all the changes I had made since the backup and redo them, and then create yet another tree at ancestry.com for TreeSync, or I could download from ancestry.com into a new database and keep the synchronization. Neither alternative was ideal.

There were two problems with using the restored database. First, I might not remember all the changes I had made. (An automatic change log would have been useful.) Second, my public tree was already being searched and used by others. Creating a new tree at ancestry.com would mean my current tree would become stale, not receiving any further updates, and there'd be no way to direct people to the new tree.

I downloaded from ancestry.com, but there are (so far) two problems with that. As noted in knowledge base article 5356, not everything transfers between FTM and ancestry.com. If you uploaded your FTM database to ancestry.com, then immediately downloaded it into another FTM database, they wouldn't be the same. For example, I had a number of saved books in my database, but they were missing in the downloaded database; this is noted in article 5356. I also found that the children of each family were no longer in birth order, even though they were in order in my ancestry.com tree; this is not mentioned in the article 5356. I'd have many hundreds of families to fix in FTM 2012.

I was hoping that support would have a way to repair my corrupted database, but they couldn't do anything with it.

While one might argue that this is the way TreeSync is supposed to work, my basic problem is that when used as intended, it's fragile. One uncontrollable mishap and you stand to lose information, even if you've got a recent backup.

renman154,

When you do a Restore from Back Up, it becomes a "new tree" / file.

So, you would initiate a new TreeSync, and delete the tree that was associated with the file that you were using, before the Restore.

Russ

Yup, understood. The point you raise was part of the problem. That is, I wanted to keep using my public tree, because people have started finding it and using it, but the approach you describe takes my tree away from them every time the synchronization fails like it did for me. They might or might not find each new tree, and if they do, they might not realize it's just a new version of a source they've used before.

The alternative - downloading from the tree - gave me a different problem: loss of information.

Sorry to hear about your problems. What a bummer. This raises the issue, again, of continuing to rethink one's backup plan. I might add that Fact Notes also don't get sync'd. So, if you use Fact Notes a lot, like I do, relying on ancestry as a backup is a bit of a problem.

I use the proprietary software that came with an external drive to backup my file everynight automatically at 1:00 am. I also "force"backups during the day with this backup software if I'm inputting a lot of stuff.

This backup has a problem, though. Because each backup erases the previous backup.

So, I use a "father, grandfather, greatgrandfather" type of plan to keep a history of files to go back to.

Father: I copy my file once a week to the external drive with a date in the name of the file or the folder it is in.

Grandfather: I keep a copy of my file for each of the past six weeks in separate folders in my external drive.

Beyond that: I keep a copy of my file at the end of each quarter for the past four quarters, but the end of each year forever.

That is the external backup in my house.

I also backup to an external backup the size of an iPod that I keep in my safe deposit box that I update at the end of each month.

I keep another monthly backup external hard drive at my daughter's house.

I am considering integrating a Cloud backup into my backup plan, but the present costs are a bit much for me. It looks like the new Google Drive might be cheap enough for me. I am looking to check it out.

I have 80 gigs music, 10 gigs photos, 10 gigs genealogy, and 10 gigs of just "stuff" - all of which makes the Cloud a bit of a challenge at the present time for me.

renman154,

Not sure I understand your point.

Yes, that OLD, can't be kept up to date, will be gone, that is IF you delete it, BUT the 'new one' that CAN be updated using the Sync feature, will keep the new tree up to date when others find it.

I would prefer to find an up to date tree, not one that can't be updated. But, that is your call.

I put my tree up, and IF this happens, I just Delete the Online Tree.

OH, IF you have contributors or editors on your old tree, you will have to invite them to the New Tree. BUT, you don't have to recreate who you invite, as they will still be in your profile for other AMT's that you might have.

Russ