Ancestry Tips: Why You Should Organize Your Managed Trees!

Ancestry Tips: Why You Should Organize Your Managed Trees!

Ancestry Tips: Why You Should Organize Your Managed Trees! ​

Do you have a long list of managed family trees on Ancestry? That list can get fairly long with more than just your personal family tree; you may have DNA match trees, client trees, test trees, family trees for friends, and volunteer case trees, and more! If so, it may be time to start organizing them!

Organizing your managed trees on Ancestry may be a lot more important than you may think. If your managed trees aren’t organized, you may not be able to use some of the tools and features on Ancestry with them. 

Some Ancestry Tools/Features That May Not Work ​

• Save a record to someone else in your tree
• Save a person to another tree

Ancestry's Save a Person to Another Tree Feature

Ancestry's Save a Record to Someone Else Feature

If you have more than 100 trees, you may not be able to use these features for some of your trees. Ancestry cuts the drop-down lists (shown in the above examples) for these features off at 100, so any trees after the first 100 will be affected. My main/personal family tree starts with an “S”; therefore, it was near the end of the list, and I couldn’t use the “save a record to someone” else feature, which was very frustrating and time consuming. This feature is meant to make things easier and save valuable time. You will want to make sure that any trees that are no longer important, such as archived clients, etc., are moved to the bottom of the list. You can think up any clever naming/labeling system that works for you.

I quickly chose a temporary system, for the meantime, that allows me to use these features for the trees that I need to use them on. It is simple, but not only does it let me use these important features, but it also helps me stay organized, by knowing what types of trees they are. I may need to give it a lot more thought in the future. 😉

My temporary Naming/Labeling system

• C- (Tree Name) =Client
• CC- (Tree Name) =Current Client
• CV- (Tree Name) =Current Volunteer
• F- (Tree Name) =Friend
• PC- (Tree Name) =Potential Client
• PI- (Tree Name) =Private Investigations
• V- (Tree Name) =Volunteer
• VW- (Tree Name) =Volunteer Co-Workers

All my personal trees are scattered between, but still fall in the drop-downs. 

Where to Change Tree Names

1. Individual "Tree settings"
2. "Create & Manage trees"

How to Get to Individual Tree “Settings”

• Drop-down next to tree name from pedigree or family view
• Drop-down next to tree name in family view
• Drop-down next to tree name in person profile page

Ancestry's Individual Tree Settings-Example 1

Ancestry's Individual Tree Settings-Example 2

How to Get to “Create & Manage Trees” "Tree Settings"

1. “Trees” from any page (in top bar)
2. “Create & Manage Trees” drop-down
3. “Tree settings” next to tree

Ancestry's Create & Manage Trees Example 1

Ancestry's Create & Manage Trees-Example 2

*Note: Your labeling system can be changed at any time, as well as removing a name for syncing or reports, then renaming again.

*Note: You can also do this for any trees shared with you, as editor.

More Ancestry, Organization, and other Genealogy Resources

Learn about more Ancestry tips, tools, and features; organization; and and other family history and genealogy resources under the Ancestry.com, Organization, and Genealogy Resources categories and on my dedicated Genealogy Resources page.