An automatic initial data load to a new table copy concurrently with active replication to existing table copies in an asynchronous replication group includes: initiating a data load of the new table copy; creating spill queue(s) at the new table copy; loading the data from a source table copy to the new table copy, where changes for the active table copies are applied during the loading, but changes to the new table copy are stored in a spill storage area; applying the changes in the spill storage area to the new table copy after the loading of the data is done; and removing the spill storage area after the changes have been applied to the new table copy. Thus, a new table copy is initialized into the replication group without requiring that replication be suspended at the source or any of the existing table copies during the initializing process.