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I want to migrate from Family Tree Maker

630 words·3 mins
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Use this when you’ve been maintaining a tree in Family Tree Maker (FTM) and want to move it to Charted Roots — either to switch tools entirely, or to use both side by side. By the end you’ll have a .ged file exported from FTM and an imported tree in your vault, with the FTM-specific gotchas (media paths, custom tags) handled.

What you’ll need
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  • A working installation of Family Tree Maker with your tree open. Versions 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2024 all support GEDCOM export.
  • (Recommended) A Staging folder configured under Settings → Charted Roots → Folders → System folders so you can review before merging.
  • Familiarity with where FTM stores your media files (typically a Media subfolder next to your .ftm file). You’ll need this for the path-stripping step.

Steps
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1. Export from Family Tree Maker
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Open your tree in FTM. Then:

  • File → Export (in older versions: File → Save As → GEDCOM)
  • Choose GEDCOM 5.5.1 as the format. (5.5 also works but loses some metadata.)
  • Choose what to include — privacy filters for living persons, source citations, media references. Default settings are usually fine for a first import.
  • Choose a destination folder you can find again. Save the .ged file.
  • (If you want media): copy the FTM Media subfolder into your Obsidian vault at the path you’ll use for the Path prefix to strip setting in step 3 (e.g., media/). Don’t move the originals — copy.

2. Open the Charted Roots Import Wizard
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Control Center → Tools → Import/Export → Import. Pick GEDCOM 5.5.1 as the format. Drag-and-drop the .ged file from step 1.

3. Configure import options
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In step 3 of the wizard, the FTM-specific settings:

  • Entity types — leave defaults on (People, Events, Sources, Places).
  • Target folder — your Staging folder if you set one up.
  • Media references — enable.
  • Path prefix to strip — set to your FTM media folder’s absolute path (e.g., C:\Users\You\Documents\Family Tree Maker\Media\). The wizard preview shows how each path resolves; tune the prefix until paths render as clean wikilinks like [[photo.jpg]].

4. Run the import and triage
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The Data Quality Preview surfaces any FTM-specific data issues (custom event types FTM uses that don’t map cleanly to GEDCOM, place-name variants from county-formatting differences). See I want to import a GEDCOM file and clean up the result for the full import + cleanup workflow.

5. Verify
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Check that your media renders. Open a few person notes that had FTM photos attached — the media: array should contain working [[filename]] wikilinks. If the media folder validation reports missing files, the path-strip prefix in step 3 was off; re-run with a corrected prefix.

Variations
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  • No media migration. Disable Media references in step 3 to skip media entirely. Your tree comes over without photos and you can attach media manually later.
  • CSV export instead of GEDCOM. FTM’s CSV export captures less than GEDCOM (relationships are flattened, no events). Use GEDCOM unless you have a specific reason.
  • Custom FTM event types. FTM supports user-defined event types that may not have a direct GEDCOM equivalent. The import surfaces these as custom events with their original label preserved. Re-categorize them after import via the Edit Event modal.
  • FTM 2024 syncing. Charted Roots doesn’t sync with Ancestry (which FTM 2024 still does). One-way migration only.

Related guides#

Reference
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