Note: As a best practice for protecting your family tree, we recommend using TreeVault, which saves an exact copy of your tree into Family Tree Maker’s secure cloud space updated in real-time as you work. It's the best way to recover a lost or damaged tree, and lets you view your tree any time and any place with the FTM Connect™ app on your smartphone or tablet. Learn more here at www.treevault.com or click here to get started.
How can I repair a Family Tree Maker® tree?
File damage can occur in a tree for various reasons, such as improper shut-downs of Family Tree Maker or your computer, malware, or bad sectors on the hard drive.
The best way to recover from file damage is to restore a backup of your data that was created before the damage occurred. It’s recommended that all Family Tree Maker users protect themselves against data loss by maintaining a good backup system. For help on backing up your data, please click here.
If you do not have a healthy backup, you can try to repair the damage using the processes below.
Exporting your File as a GEDCOM
COMPACTING YOUR FILE
Probably the easiest fix you can try is to compact your file. For best results, make sure the file is closed before you start. To compact the file, please follow these steps:
If your tree file is open, choose Close from the File menu.
Choose Compact File from the Tools menu.
- In the window that opens, navigate to the location where your file is stored, select it and click Open.
In the Compact File window, select the Perform extended analysis checkbox, then click Compact.
Your file will now be compacted. Depending on the size of the file and the amount by which it is compacted, this can take some time. When this process finishes, you will see a window stating the compact is complete, and that the file size was reduced by a percentage. Note the percentage and click OK.
- Repeat this process until the percentage is 0.00%
- Open your file again and check if you are still experiencing issues.
DOWNLOADING FROM ANCESTRY
If you've been able to sync your tree up to Ancestry successfully, and don't have a good backup you can restore, you can download your Ancestry tree as a new corruption-free file in FTM 2019. You can do that from three places—the Plan workspace, Tree Browser (FTM 2019 only), or the Ancestry Sync icon.
Downloading a tree from the Plan workspace:
1. Go to the New Tree tab on the Plan workspace.
2. Select Download a Tree from Ancestry, find the tree you want to download in the list, and click the Download Tree button in the lower-right corner.
3. After some processing, you will see the Sync Weather Report®, after which the options for downloading your tree will appear. Make sure you choose a name for the new tree that is easy to distinguish from your existing, corrupted tree, then set the other sync options, and click Download.
4. The download process will start. Depending on the size of your tree and your connection speed, this can take some time. Once this process is complete, you will see a window indicating success, such as the one below.
Downloading a tree using Tree Browser (FTM 2019 only):
1. Click the View menu or the Select Tree drop-down list on the far left of the main toolbar, and then click Tree Browser. The Tree Browser window appears.
2. In the left part of the window, select the Ancestry group of trees. A list of your Ancestry trees appears to the right.
3. Select the tree you need in the list and click the Download Tree button in the bottom-right corner of the window.
4. The download process will start. Depending on the size of your tree and your connection speed, this can take some time. Once the process is complete, the downloaded tree will open automatically on the Tree tab of the People workspace.
Downloading a tree using the Ancestry Sync icon:
1. Click the Ancestry Sync icon on the far right of the main toolbar, and then click Download from Ancestry in the drop-down list. The Download From Ancestry window appears.
2. Select the tree you need in the list and click the Download Tree button in the bottom-right corner of the window.
3. The download process will start. Depending on the size of your tree and your connection speed, this can take some time. Once the process is complete, the downloaded tree will open automatically on the Tree tab of the People workspace.
EXPORTING YOUR FILE AS A GEDCOM
When using this repair method, it's important to note that GEDCOM files do not include saved publications or tasks.
1. Choose Export from the File menu.
2. You may see a window with information about password protection. Click Continue and the Export window opens.
Select Entire file, change the Output format to GEDCOM, and make sure all of the checkboxes in the Include section are selected.
3. The Export to GEDCOM window will open; select Other from the drop-down list and click OK.
4. Navigate to the location you want to save the exported file to, type a name for the file, and click Save.
5. Reimport this file. If you need instructions for importing files, you can find them by clicking here.