i am running Ubuntu Linux, Xubunto 18.04.6 and have stalled getting Gramps running due to hardware issues that are forcing me to do a migration. i am needing to prepare a means to rapidly bring up the new laptop to where i am now, to minimize the time i am offline.
my question is if there is a means to import trees or branches of trees from Ancestry, without using GEDCOM, that are not my trees. i have found another tree i would like to import a big branch from. it would also be nice if i could export just a branch from Gramps to Ancestry. since Ancestry cannot import GEDCOM unless it is to create a new tree, this would need to use a different method.
i can envision some script or external feature that logs into the Ancestry website with provided credentials and carries out website steps to download or upload profiles including relationships, source info, and media, that can be viewed by that user. i had been thinking about what would be needed to do some more advanced things like copying branches between trees within Ancestry.
Unfortunately GEDCOM is the only way between Gramps and Ancestry. Ancestry does have some APIs to allow their Treesync function to work with external programs, but their policies require that anyone utilizing these APIs be a corporation and sign extensive legal agreements that include major non-disclosure clauses. These policies simply don’t allow open source projects to use their APIs.
so, i will need to consider the possibilities of creating a “web scraper” tool to apply to Ancestry. this may be the only way to get profiles from the public trees of other people. reverse engineering of their API from the JavaScript may not be usable. it could be designed to work with a copyrighted string meaning that any implementation would need to have that string in some form. right now, i’m thinking along the lines of a Firefox extension.
then it’s a matter of importing that into Gramps. i assume XML is the best choice for this. it can import an add-on branch that way, right?