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FamilySearchFamily Tree Essentials

Find, Take, Teach Series

April 22, 2015

Ben Baker

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My Background

• Over 5 years as a Software Engineer at

FamilySearch

• Currently work on Family Tree, but try to use

all our products

• Have previously given several presentations

going into more detail on several similar

topics. To view/download these

presentations go to

http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84.

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Purpose of FamilySearch

The purpose of the Family History

Department is to help Church members

fulfill their divinely appointed

responsibility to discover their families

and submit their names for temple

ordinances

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3 Great Myths of Family History

My genealogy is done / There is

nothing for me to do

Doing Family History is too hard and

time consuming

Family History is for old people

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Family Tree is “Our Tree”

• Freely available to anyone worldwide

• Reduces duplication of effort

• Increases collaboration to arrive at the best information

• Information added outlives contributors

• Link person profiles to additional information

• More on this topic in my other presentations on SlideShare

We can all go further faster by working together

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Critical Paradigm To Understand –

Part 1Where you can help the most

1. Find your relatives in indexed records and link them to persons in Family Tree

2. Upload photos, stories and documents of your relatives and link them to persons in Family Tree

3. Help index historical records

4. Clean up data in Family Tree

5. Reserve temple ordinances for your family

Family Tree

Digitized Images

Indexed Records

Historical Records (Microfilm and

original documents)

Living Memory

Photos, Stories, Documents, Audio

Completed LDS Temple

Ordinances

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Critical Paradigm To Understand –

Part 2

The best way

to find people who need LDS temple work is

to find people who are NOT in the tree yet

The best way

to find people not in the tree yet is

to find them in a historical record with

someone who is already in the tree

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Record Hints are Awesome!

• Searches indexed records for you

• Will find records based on all information, including maiden and married names

• Often overcomes errors in records

• Only presents high confidence matches

• Exponential increase in sources attached since rollout

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Congratulations!

You have just found someone in a record that is not in the tree

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Use Other “Tree” Views

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Achieving Regular Small Successes

• Look to resolve indicator icons on your relatives• Data Problems

• Record Hints

• Research Suggestions

• Ordinance Icons

• Add any memories you have• Photos

• Documents

• Stories

• Audio

• Try to work from closest to more distant• Start with closest direct ancestors

• Make sure children for direct ancestors are recorded and also have indicator icons resolved

• Move to grandchildren and great-grandchildren of your direct ancestors

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Landscape View

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Portrait Pedigree View

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Fan Chart View

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Descendancy View

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View Memories of Your Relatives

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Scope of Interest

Internal term used to define those persons who

will show up in this section of memories and

also in temple opportunities.

The system is showing you persons four

generations above you along with their spouses

and children. This may be expanded in the

future.

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View My Relationship

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3 Great Myths of Family History

My genealogy is done / There is

nothing for me to do

Doing Family History is too hard and

time consuming

Family History is for old people