GEDCOM Upload Problems & Fixes
Why GEDCOM uploads to FamilySearch and other platforms fail, stall, or silently drop data — the real limits, the exact error text, and what to do about each.
A GEDCOM upload rarely fails the way software normally fails. There is often no error at all — the platform accepts the file, reports success, and then shows a tree with a fraction of the people who were in it. That silence is what makes these problems so hard to diagnose: the thing that went wrong happened inside an importer you cannot see, to a file you cannot easily read.
The guides in this section work backwards from that. FamilySearch documents exactly one hard limit — 100 MB per GEDCOM file — and one soft recommendation: upload roughly 100 individuals at a time, so the compare-and-merge review stays manageable. Neither of those is a technical cap on how many people a file may contain, and conflating them is the most common reason people give up on an upload that would have worked in pieces. Beyond those two published figures, the failure patterns are community-observed rather than official: silent partial imports have been reported at a few thousand individuals, and effectively unusable results at tens of thousands.
The rest is encoding and structure. Files exported by older software often use ANSEL, a character set that predates Unicode, which turns accented names into mojibake the moment a modern importer reads them as UTF-8. Broken family links, references to records that no longer exist, and dates that contradict each other will each be rejected differently by each platform. Every guide here names the specific error text where one exists, and says plainly where a limit is confirmed, officially recommended, or only observed.
Start hereUpload Readiness CheckerRead your file before you upload it. The checker reports its size, individual count, encoding, and structural problems against the thresholds above, and hands the file straight to the Tree Splitter if it needs breaking up. Nothing leaves your browser.18 guides in this section
- "Some Records Were Not Uploaded Correctly" — What This Actually MeansFamilySearch's vague "some records were not uploaded correctly" message explained: what's likely missing, why it happens, and how to check what you lost.
- Ancestry: How to Export and Troubleshoot Your GEDCOMAncestry caps GEDCOM uploads at 75 MB, restricts downloads to tree owners, and sometimes hands you a .txt file by mistake. Here's how it actually works.
- Common GEDCOM Upload Error Messages, ExplainedFrom outright rejection to indefinite processing to silent data loss, here's what each FamilySearch GEDCOM upload failure actually means and what to do.
- Exporting Just Your Direct Ancestors: A Step-by-Step GuideA step-by-step walkthrough for extracting only your direct ancestral line from a large GEDCOM file — parents, grandparents, and back — in your browser.
- Family Tree Maker: GEDCOM Export GuideFamily Tree Maker's GEDCOM export never includes publications or tasks, and media links break if the Media folder moves. Here's the full export walkthrough.
- FamilySearch GEDCOM Size and Individual Limits: What We FoundFamilySearch publishes one hard GEDCOM limit: 100 MB. Here's every real number we could confirm, sourced, plus what community reports show beyond that.
- FamilySearch: GEDCOM Upload TroubleshootingFamilySearch has no direct GEDCOM export, and uploads now create a separate working tree, not a merge into Family Tree. Here's how it actually works now.
- GEDCOM Encoding Problems: Why Names Look Garbled After UploadA name like José turning into José© or François into François after a GEDCOM upload is almost always an encoding mismatch. Here's why, and how to fix it.
- Gramps: GEDCOM Import/Export Quirks (Open-Source Specifics)Gramps drops call names and tags on GEDCOM export, includes every source in a subset export, and duplicates events on a repeat import. Here's why each happens.
- Heredis: GEDCOM Export and Known LimitationsA privacy setting on Heredis's root person can silently export an empty GEDCOM file. Here's that bug, plus its calendar, encoding, and place-name quirks.
- How Long Should a GEDCOM Upload Take? (And When to Give Up and Retry)FamilySearch doesn't publish an expected GEDCOM upload time. Here's what real reports show, and a practical rule for when a stuck upload isn't coming back.
- How to Split a Large Family Tree Before UploadingSplitting a GEDCOM file before uploading is the fix genealogists repeat most often on FamilySearch's own forum. Here's how to do it without breaking links.
- Legacy Family Tree: GEDCOM Export and Compatibility NotesLegacy's native GEDCOM export uses extensions beyond GEDCOM 5.5. Here's when to use its 'GEDCOM 5.5 Only' option instead, and what each character set means.
- MyHeritage: GEDCOM Export and Import IssuesMyHeritage caps free trees at 250 people, always creates a new tree from a GEDCOM import, and exports only through desktop software. Here's how it works.
- Reunion (Mac): GEDCOM 7.0 Compatibility StatusReunion added GEDCOM 7.0 and GEDZIP support in version 14, released in 2024. Earlier versions have a documented history of not fully following GEDCOM 5.5.1.
- RootsMagic: GEDCOM Export Settings That Prevent Data LossRootsMagic's GEDCOM export has checkboxes that silently drop notes, sources, and custom tags if left unchecked. Here's what each setting actually does.
- Why Does My GEDCOM Upload to FamilySearch Keep Failing?FamilySearch GEDCOM uploads fail for a handful of recurring reasons — file size, individual count, and encoding. Here's how to tell which one is yours.
- WikiTree and Geni: Sharing a GEDCOM to a Collaborative TreeWikiTree and Geni don't bulk-import a GEDCOM file — they match it against one shared tree, person by person. Here's how that actually works on each site.