1. What’s New with Familysearch?
Hint: a lot!
Thanks to FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services
support@familysearch.org

2. • The problem I faced was how to decide
what to talk about and what to leave out.

3. The latest and greatest 1. FamilySearch currently has 3.2 billion searchable
names on the website.
2. 429 Million names were indexed in 2012.
3. 222 digital cameras are currently operating worldwide,
capturing images of genealogical documents.
4. Digitization of the records stored in the granite vault
above Salt Lake City is now at 37% of the 31
billion images.

4. Hmm.

5. • There is not one web site that summarizes
all the recent changes, but there are many
places to look.
• Which is good and bad…

6. Then there are strange,
non repeatable occurrences

7. Fan charts mess up

8. Fan charts mess up pt 2

9. Nice. So, where are my uploaded files?

10. www.familysearch.org/tree-training
• This site has various training videos, and
other materials. They suggest that “Family
Tree: Quick Start Guide”, “Introduction to
the Family Tree” and “Family Tree
Overview” as especially helpful.

11. • There is a Family Tree reference manual.
• It has 11 main sections:

12. They are (in 163 pages):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Chapter 1: Getting to Family Tree.
Chapter 2: Seeing Your Ancestors on a Pedigree Chart or Fan Chart.
Chapter 3: Seeing Details about People.
Chapter 4: Adding and Correcting Information about People and
Relationships
Chapter 5: Adding Photos and Stories to Your Ancestors in Family Tree
Chapter 6: Searching for Deceased People
Chapter 7: Printing Information
Chapter 8: Attaching Sources to People and Relationships
Chapter 9: Merging Duplicate Records
Chapter 10: Working with Other Users
Chapter 11: Signing in to Use Family Tree for Someone Else

13. •
•
•
•
•
So, what’s on the intro page?:
New and Improved Search,
Get Tips from Experts, and Share What You Know
One Sign In for All FamilySearch Resources
And a lot of pretty politically correct pictures…

14. How are new items added and why?
• Information about upcoming collections is not made available prior to
publication due to various factors that can affect the publication time
line, such as contract agreements with record custodians or partnership
societies, final assembly considerations, server capacity, geographic
considerations, prioritization of collections at risk, delivery type, and
so forth.

15. • How can you request them to add
something that is on film but not yet
digitized?

16. They said…
• A portion of Historical Records comes from FamilySearch indexing.
You can view the list of projects that are being indexed for inclusion
in Historical Records on the Projects tab of the FamilySearch indexing
website. Again, there is no specific time frame for the publication of
indexing projects, since they are governed by the same considerations
as indicated above.

17. • If you would like to request that a specific collection be added to our
online collections, please follow these directions.
• Go to the FamilySearch website.
• Click on the Feedback button found in the footer section of the page,
or click the Help or Feedback link in the upper right corner of the
screen.
• Click on Share your ideas, and post your request.

18. Then you get this…
Are you kidding me?
>>>>>>>>>>

19. Of course….

20. Then again, there are some good new things:

21. the search screen is buried a little :

22. But at least you can limit things

23. https://familysearch.org/blog/en/familysearchfeaturemy-source-box/
• New FamilySearch Feature—My Source
Box

25. So, you can find
Online Courses
"How-To" Videos
Guides and Manuals
Handouts

26. What do you think of the new
Familysearch.org?
• Is it?
• Or is it?

27. • Much more accessible and also driving
toward a more youthful user base?
• Or is it “Facebook for dead people”?

28. Bloggers have definite opinions
• It’s about half and half, good and bad.
• It seems to allow more access, but also is a
lot more work. And the interface is less
intuitive.

29. Bad news:

30. Direct from Familysearch…
•
•
FS notes that there is no real timetable for a specific item. They will be
slipstreamed.
For example; Family Tree will soon have printable family group
sheets and pedigree charts. When? The release is being held up by
translation into 10 languages. Product managers are considering not
waiting, releasing English sooner rather than later.

31. From Ron Tanner of FamilySearch (product manager
for the Family History Department)
• Family Tree will soon have printable family
group sheets and pedigree charts.
• Will add the ability to take any photograph
and make a source out of it.
• Family Tree will soon support notes on
ancestors and the notes over in NFS will be
copied over.
• FamilySearch is going to bring over all your
sources from NFS.

32. And more:
• Family Tree doesn’t support attaching
sources or reasons to living persons.
• FS wants to add quality indicators to Family
Tree. These would flag basic pedigree errors
like: birth after death, death after burial,
person died young and has spouse, birth
before mother/father birth, birth before
mother/father was 12, birth after mother died,
death before marriage date, marriage date
before person is 12…
• In other words what someone should catch.

33. FS sez:
• They are going to add a report abuse button
that “allows you to report someone who keeps
reverting changes and won’t read notes and
won’t discuss. If they won’t cooperate we will
delete their account. “
• They are working on the watch notification
timing. They may allow change notification to
occur in as little as 5 minutes.

34. • FS is adding Helper capability to Family Tree.
It allows someone to sign in as someone else
(with their permission) without that other
person disclosing their password.
• FS is also thinking about implementing toggle
war detection. If a value gets changed back
and forth too many times the system would
automatically lock it for some time.
• And they are also discussing what to do to
support DNA results.

35. • Further, FS is thinking about implementing an
“Is Accurate” designation that could be
applied to an ancestor once he was largely
complete and unanimously regarded as
accurate.
• The designation would make it harder to
change information about that ancestor.
• And FamilySearch is working on a way to help
attach census records to an entire family and
minimize the amount of work required.

36. There are other opinions
• http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/2010/12/we-w
• Zotero - is a Firefox extension that helps to
capture bibliographic information. See:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=pq94aBrc0pY

37. Source your information!
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•
•
•
Of course, getting sources in is a bit time consuming.
This is fairly new, and seems to be a bit tedious.
How do you do it and what are the choices?
They are somewhat overpowering if you have more
than a few relatives to check on.

38. Recordseek

43. • Sometimes it seems easier to simply type it in.
• Most genealogy programs have a source list that
can be reused once it is set up. So does FS, but it
seems clunky to me.

44. How many hours do you want to spend updating
rather than researching?
• Do you have data and accounts at:
Ancestry, Archives.com, FamilyLink.com,
Familysearch.org, FamilytreeDNA.com,
Findagrave, Genealogy.com, Geni, Google
Groups, MyHeritage, Rootsweb,
Worldconnect, and lastly Wordpress.
• Or maybe you have your own web site