If the trees could be merged imagine how much less incorrect information there would be floating around on Ancestry.com. I am constantly finding and fixing errors, and when I upload a new tree (usually every 3 months) that bad information is still out there and gets propagated until it looks like the truth. Being able to synchronize the information would limit the amount of bad info out there.

Daniel - you say that a media download method (for ancestry.com?) and true synchronization have already been done in other genealogy products. Which ones? I looked and couldn't see where it explicitly says for Rootsmagic 4, Legacy 7, or any of the rest that they do this. Please let me know.

I apologize for not being more specific. I did say that such synchronization has been accomplished in many other products, but no genealogy product of which I am aware. For some reason this continues to be an unsolved problem...

The only sychronized PC to on-line database I use is MyHeritage Family Builder@. The PC-resident program is free and readily posts data with photos/docs on a personally-controlled website. If you want to post more than 250 names and use the site-to-site matching/copying capabilities, you must pay a monthly fee. Others may import "your" data and photos into their PC from your on-line posting once you authorize them to "belong" to your MyHeritage.com site.
I have imported data and scanned photos/docs from several family researchers in three countries using MyHeritage.com. While I continue to use FTM v16 for several files, I limit scrapbook photos to a minimum due to their file size impact and the difficulty of sharing them while imbeded in the *.FTW database.

I agree wholeheartedly ! I have been using FTM at home for 10 years and thought I'd give Ancestry.com a shot to see if I would find any information. I did find information and started adding it to the tree I created on Ancesty.com site but found it very time consuming to have to manage my home computer info and the one on line as well...it seems ludicrous to me that they cannot combine the software they market for home use with their online version to share online information which we are PAYING to obtain.

As far as I am concerned Ancestry seems to be looking out for themselves and building their information base without any thought to their consumers. You cannot even print out all the information you attach through their hints to a printable report. Their new trees are cumbersome and only bring up some descendents, not all.

I frankly am surprised at the overall ineptitude of this web site especially considering the length of time they have been in business one would think it would be of a higher caliber than it is.

My plan is to just keep my home database and use the online site for a few months just to obtain info and not supply free research FOR Ancestry.com I hope they will start to be more consumer friendly especially since many of us have bought their home version of Family Tree Maker which has many nice features for reports and linking people together. It is amazing to me that you can't combine people from tree to tree either online OR that you can't import infor from your home tree into one you have online, you have to creat a whole separate tree- NUTS !!! Oh well I learned my lesson the hard way waasting a lot of time using their site to build ridiculous trees that don't help me in any way. KAthy

Why not something as simple as this: if the name of the tree being uploaded matches the name of a tree already at Ancestry.com, provide a dialog box that says "Replace, Add as new, or Cancel." The dialog would work as follows:

Replace: the uploaded tree would replace the existing tree of the same name. All permissions etc. associated with the replaced tree would be kept intact for the replacing version.

Add as new: a new tree would be created with a suffix of -1 (or -2 or -3 as required.)

Cancel: the upload operation is canceled with nothing changed or uploaded.