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How to Export a GEDCOM File from Ancestry, FamilySearch, and MyHeritage
A GEDCOM (.ged) file is a standard export format supported by every major genealogy platform. Here is where to find the export option on each one.
Ancestry
Open your tree, go to Tree Settings, then choose Export tree to request the export. Ancestry builds the file in the background rather than handing it to you right away — this can take anywhere from a few minutes to longer for a large tree, so wait for Ancestry’s “your GEDCOM is ready” notification or download button instead of expecting it instantly. Once it says ready, download the .ged file to your computer.
FamilySearch
FamilySearch Family Tree has no GEDCOM download — the shared tree cannot be exported directly from the website. To get a .ged file of your branch, use a FamilySearch-certified desktop program that syncs with Family Tree (RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree and Ancestral Quest all do): sign in to FamilySearch from inside the program, download the people you want, then export a GEDCOM from that program with File > Export. The only thing FamilySearch itself will hand back is a GEDCOM you previously uploaded to its Genealogies section, from that same page.
MyHeritage
Open Family tree > Manage trees, then choose Export to GEDCOM next to the tree you want. MyHeritage emails you a download link when the file is ready.
Desktop software: Family Tree Maker, Legacy, RootsMagic, Gramps
In any of these, use File > Export > GEDCOM.
Once you have the file
Save it somewhere you can find it, then upload it wherever you need it. Exporting is a read-only snapshot of your tree at that moment — it does not change your original tree on Ancestry, FamilySearch, or wherever it lives. If the export won’t open afterward, that’s usually a file-format problem in the software you exported from, not something to troubleshoot downstream — see GEDCOM validator vs. research audit for the difference between a file that won’t open and a file that opens fine but has research gaps.
What to do with it next
Once you have a .ged file, KinSift reads it and checks the structural evidence behind it across the five GPS-aligned categories, including whether it is ready for a written conclusion — for free, with no signup or account.
Want to see this against your own tree? Upload a GEDCOM and KinSift checks the structural evidence behind it across the five GPS-aligned categories, including whether it is ready for a written conclusion — free, no signup, no card.
Check my research — free