How to Transfer Genealogy Files After a Death: GEDCOM Exports, Media, and Account Ownership

When the person who managed your family tree dies, the loss is not only personal—it can feel like the family’s history is suddenly at risk. You might know there are years of research behind an online account, photos carefully attached to ancestors, and notes that only make sense because one person understood the whole puzzle. And then, in the middle of grief and funeral planning, a practical fear shows up: what if the tree disappears, the subscription lapses, or nobody can get into the account?

The reassuring truth is that most families can preserve the work—often with a simple two-part approach: a GEDCOM export for the core tree data, plus a separate backup for media like photos and documents. The GEDCOM is the “structure” of the tree. The media is the “evidence” and the texture. If you save both, you do not just keep a list of names. You keep a research project that future relatives can continue.

This guide will walk you through what to do, what a GEDCOM includes (and often doesn’t), and how to handle the uncomfortable but important question of Ancestry transfer tree ownership—in other words, who can access, manage, and keep building the tree after the original account holder is gone.

Why this matters now: legacy is both emotional and logistical

Families often assume the hardest decisions after a death will be the visible ones: burial vs. cremation, a service vs. something private, what to say in an obituary. But the “invisible” work—accounts, files, photos, and digital records—can have an equally lasting impact. That is why digital legacy planning matters, even if it feels secondary in the moment. Funeral.com’s Journal has a practical overview of this broader issue in Digital Accounts After a Death: A Practical Closure Checklist, which explains how many platforms require proof of death and proof of authority when you request access or changes.

It also helps to know you are not alone in feeling overwhelmed. According to the Cremation Association of North America, the U.S. cremation rate was 61.8% in 2024, and the National Funeral Directors Association projects 63.4% for 2025. As more families choose cremation, more families also find themselves managing the details of memorialization and legacy—both physical (like cremation urns, cremation urns for ashes, keepsake urns, and cremation jewelry) and digital (like a family tree that can still be built upon).

Start with the basic concept: what a GEDCOM export is (and what it isn’t)

A GEDCOM is the standard file format used to exchange family tree data between genealogy programs and services. FamilySearch explains that the GEDCOM standard exists so genealogical information can be moved between systems and preserved outside a single website or app. In other words, it is the closest thing genealogy has to a universal “save file.” See FamilySearch’s overview of what a GEDCOM file is for the formal definition and purpose.

Here is the practical translation: a download ancestry gedcom (or GEDCOM download from another service) will usually preserve names, dates, relationships, events, and much of the text-based research structure. It will not reliably preserve everything you can see on the website, especially when it comes to photos, documents, and some platform-specific features.

What data a GEDCOM usually includes

Most GEDCOM exports capture the backbone of the tree: people, relationships, and events. That includes items like birth and death facts, marriage relationships, parent-child links, and notes you added in text fields. It is designed to let you recreate the tree elsewhere—even if the new platform formats things differently.

What a GEDCOM often does not include (especially photos and records)

This is the part that surprises families. Many GEDCOM exports are “text-only” in practice. Ancestry’s support documentation is unusually clear on this point: a GEDCOM export contains the facts and information for a tree, but “photos, media, and similar items are not included.” You can confirm this directly in Ancestry Support’s Uploading and Downloading Trees article.

Some products and standards are improving how media travels. FamilySearch notes that FamilySearch GEDCOM 7.0 adds zip packaging capabilities for photos and files, and GEDZip is designed to bundle data with external images and files in a standard zip archive. If you are using a tool that supports these newer capabilities, it can reduce the “my photos disappeared” problem. See FamilySearch’s GEDCOM 7.0 standard overview and the GEDCOM General FAQs page that explains GEDZip. Even with these improvements, many families should still plan to back up media separately because not every platform and app supports the same export options yet.

The best practice: a two-part backup that future relatives can actually use

If your goal is transfer family tree after death in a way that preserves the work, treat it as two deliverables.

• Part 1: the GEDCOM file (the tree structure and text data).
• Part 2: a media archive (photos, documents, and anything you would be heartbroken to lose).

This approach is also the simplest way to think about genealogy data backup. The GEDCOM protects the relationships and research scaffolding. The media archive protects the meaning: scanned letters, family portraits, headstone photos, and the record images that explain why a date is correct.

How to export a GEDCOM from major services

You do not need to be “technical” to do this. The key is to locate the export option, download the file, and store it somewhere safe. If you are doing this for an estate or for multiple relatives, consider labeling the file with the tree name and the date of export so it is clear which version it is.

Ancestry: export the tree, then decide who can keep editing

Ancestry provides a tree export option in Tree Settings. Their help content describes the process under “Manage your tree” and “Export tree” in Uploading and Downloading Trees. Once the export is ready, you download a .ged file.

Because Ancestry transfer tree ownership is not always as simple as “handing over” an account, one of the most helpful moves—when possible—is to ensure another relative has ongoing editing rights before the original account becomes inaccessible. Ancestry supports sharing a tree through invitations, links, and usernames in Sharing a Family Tree. They also define what editors can do in Who Can Edit Your Ancestry Tree, which is useful when you are deciding who should be trusted to maintain the tree.

If you are the person stepping in after a death, the practical takeaway is this: even if you cannot “own” the account in a formal sense, you can often preserve the work by exporting the GEDCOM and, when allowed and available, ensuring a trusted family member has edit access to keep the tree alive.

MyHeritage: export the tree and assign a manager when appropriate

MyHeritage’s help center explains how to export a GEDCOM from a family site through the “Manage Trees” area and an “Export to GEDCOM” option. See MyHeritage: How do I download (export) a GEDCOM file of my family tree?.

On the question of share genealogy account responsibilities, MyHeritage also supports assigning management roles on a family site. Their help center explains how to promote someone to Site Manager in How can I promote someone to Site Manager of my site?. In practice, this can be a gentle way to avoid the “one person holds everything” problem long before a death occurs.

Backing up photos and documents: how to save what a GEDCOM leaves behind

This is where many families lose momentum. Exporting a GEDCOM feels like you “saved the tree,” and then you realize the most precious items—the pictures and documents—are still living inside a website.

Start with a mindset shift: your GEDCOM export protects the relationships and the typed facts. Your media backup protects the proof and the story. If your goal is preserve family history, you want both.

FamilySearch provides a blunt reminder of the gap in many exports: one FamilySearch export experience explicitly notes that the export does not include photo files and focuses on essential names, dates, and events. See Family Tree Export (FamilySearch) for an example of how a platform can export data while leaving photos behind.

A simple approach that works for most families

If you are trying to save genealogy photos and documents in a way future relatives can navigate, keep it boring and consistent. Create a folder called something like “Family Tree Media Backup,” then organize by surname line or by family branch. If the original researcher already had an organization system, respect it—do not “improve” it during grief. Consistency matters more than elegance.

As you download, consider keeping three kinds of files together:

• Photos (portraits, family snapshots, headstones, cemetery photos).
• Document images (certificates, census images, military records, newspaper clippings).
• A simple readme file that explains what the folders are and who created the research.

You do not have to download everything in one sitting. The most important thing is to get the irreplaceable items out of a single account and into a shared family archive that can survive password changes, subscription cancellations, and time.

Keep citations and context, not just images

A photo without context becomes mysterious quickly. If the site shows a source citation, a record collection name, or a note about where a document came from, consider saving that information alongside the image. Even a basic filename convention—“1900 Census - John Smith - Cook County - image”—can keep future relatives from having to redo work that was already done carefully.

Account ownership after death: what families can realistically do

The phrase family tree inheritance sounds straightforward, but digital accounts are governed by provider policies, privacy rules, and (sometimes) state law. That is why it helps to separate two issues: access to the data (which you can often preserve with exports and backups) and control of the account (which may require documentation and formal authority).

Funeral.com’s Journal notes that many platforms require proof of death and proof of relationship or authority when you request deletion, data access, or account changes, and that requirements vary by provider. See Digital Accounts After a Death: A Practical Closure Checklist for the practical framing.

If you can plan ahead: assign collaborators and use formal emergency-access tools

If the account holder is still alive but thinking ahead, the most compassionate “gift” to future relatives is clarity. That can include naming a trusted collaborator, documenting where exports are stored, and using secure tools that support an orderly handoff. Funeral.com’s Journal discusses how password manager emergency access can provide a formal process for a trusted person to gain access without sharing passwords casually—see Storing Passwords and Digital Legacy Details: What Families Actually Do. This kind of planning is not about control; it is about preventing the research from becoming locked behind grief, confusion, or security barriers.

If you are already after the death: treat it as a digital-asset issue, not a guessing game

In many places, access to online accounts after death intersects with fiduciary authority. The Uniform Law Commission’s summary of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) explains that it governs access to a person’s online accounts when the account owner dies or loses capacity and describes the role of fiduciaries like executors and trustees. See Uniform Law Commission: RUFADAA overview. This is not legal advice, but it is a helpful conceptual map: if a platform requires formal authority, families often need to approach it through the documentation the platform requests and the authority the estate process provides.

Where to store backups so the work survives generations

It is common for a family to successfully export a GEDCOM, download some photos, and then lose everything again because the files live on one laptop. Think of your backups the way you think of heirlooms: they should not have a single point of failure.

A practical, low-drama approach is to keep at least one copy in a shared family cloud folder and one copy on an external drive. If your family is sensitive to privacy, you can still share selectively by branch or by folder. The goal is resilience, not public exposure.

Also consider a “succession note” for the tree—one page that says: where the GEDCOM is, where the media is, which services were used, and who the designated caretaker is. This is one of the simplest ways to make transfer family tree after death a solvable project instead of an emotional scavenger hunt.

How this connects to memorial choices: physical legacy and digital legacy can coexist

Preserving a family tree is one way to keep someone present in the long arc of the family. For many families, it is part of the same emotional instinct that leads them to choose a meaningful memorial object—something steady that can be revisited over time.

If your family is navigating cremation decisions as part of funeral planning, it can help to know that memorial choices can be scaled to your needs. A primary urn can be paired with smaller keepsakes for relatives who want something tangible, just as a primary family tree can be paired with shared exports and shared media archives for relatives who want to keep building. If you are exploring options, Funeral.com’s Cremation Urns for Ashes collection is a starting point for full-size memorials, while Small Cremation Urns for Ashes and Keepsake Cremation Urns for Ashes can support a sharing plan.

If you are navigating pet loss alongside family loss—or if the person who managed the tree was also the person who held the family’s pet memories—Funeral.com’s Pet Cremation Urns for Ashes and Pet Figurine Cremation Urns for Ashes collections can support a memorial that feels personal and specific. For jewelry-based memorials, Cremation Necklaces offer a wearable option, and the Journal’s Cremation Jewelry 101 guide explains how cremation necklaces and other pieces typically work.

Families also ask practical questions that overlap with timing and decision-making: keeping ashes at home, water burial, what to do with ashes, and how much does cremation cost. If those questions are part of your week, Funeral.com’s Journal has helpful, calm explanations in Keeping Ashes at Home, Water Burial and Burial at Sea, and How Much Does Cremation Cost in the U.S.?.

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