Coming Very Soon in FamilySearch Family Tree

What’s New—June 3, 2014, Part 1

Use “Record Hints” to Find Records of Your Ancestors

Finding your ancestors among the billions of records on FamilySearch.org just got easier with a new feature called Record Hints. FamilySearch.org finds the records for you. For each person in Family Tree, FamilySearch.org now compares the person’s information with all of its indexed records and displays the best matches. You don’t have to fill out a search form or click a button to request a search—the results are already displayed for you. You don’t have to weed through hundreds of search results—you have a short list that usually includes records for your ancestors.

Keep in mind that the accuracy of the matches depends on the information that is in Family Tree and the information that was indexed. If FamilySearch.org doesn’t have much information to compare, you may still get records that don’t match. But the percentage of accurate matches is high, and the list you look through is short.

And when you find a record about your ancestor, it’s now easy to attach the record to Family Tree as a source, which lets others see where you got your information.

Here’s a list of Record Hints for Olive Benedict Livermore.

These indexed records include Olive’s name and match her information in Family Tree. To see a record, you click Olive’s name above the record. If the record is for someone other than Olive, scroll down to see if she is listed as the mother or the daughter. The record may be for one of her children or for her parents.

Where to Find Record Hints

You can access Record Hints from two places in Family Tree: in the Descendancy view on the right of the person’s name or on the person’s details page on the right side. To see the list of Record Hints in the Descendancy view, click the icon.

Record Hints Icon on the Descendancy View

Record Hints on the Details Page

How to Use Record Hints

The Descendancy view is the quickest way to see which ancestors have Record Hints. When you put an ancestor in the main position in the Descendancy view, you can easily display all of the ancestor’s descendants who are in Family Tree. Then you scroll down the screen looking for Record Hints icons.

When you click a Record Hints icon, look at the records in the list, and then use the new source feature to attach to Family Tree those records that are for your ancestor. Attaching a source now takes only a couple of clicks.

1.       Go to the Descendancy view. (On the pedigree, in the upper left corner, on the View button, click the down arrow, and click Descendancy.) By default, you appear as the person in the main position.

2.       Move an ancestor to the main position.

·         Above your name, click the Expand link. More generations of ancestors appear.

·         Click the Select button for the ancestor you want to put in the main position.

·         To choose an ancestor even more generations back, repeat the process (click the Expand link, and click the Select button for the ancestor).

3.       If you want to see the Record Hints icons for all the ancestor’s descendants, scroll down the page, clicking all of the triangles that point to the right (>). This displays all the spouses and children and their Record Hints icons. 

4.       View the records for the person.

·         To view one record, click your ancestor’s name above the record.

·         To see more information about all the records, click Show All at the bottom of the list of records. The system shows you the key Family Tree information for the person and the key information from the indexed records. If the information in the record matches your ancestor, click the Review button for the record.

After you select a record to view, FamilySearch.org displays the Family Tree record on the left and the information from the indexed record on the right.

5.       Compare the person’s Family Tree information with the information in the indexed record.

Tip: You can use the scroll bar on the far right to scroll down the Family Tree record. To compare birth dates and places, scroll to the Vital Information section. To compare marriage information or family members, scroll to the Family Members section. 

In this example, the names are not common and are the same in both records; the marriage date and place are the same; the estimated birth years are close to the actual birth years. The evidence indicates that this is the marriage record for the Olive Benedict and Daniel Livermore who are in Family Tree.

6.       If you determine that the record is for your ancestor, click the Attach button near the top.

You’ll see the following screen.

7.       Add a reason why you think this record should be attached to your ancestor, and click Attach.

Note: You can attach the record even if you don’t list a reason, but the reason lets you and other users know what information helped you decide that this was a record for your ancestor.

The system returns you to the person’s details page, where you can view the next record in the Record Hints list.

Congratulations! With one icon, four or five clicks and one sentence, you’ve found a record for your ancestor, and added it as a source to Family Tree.

What’s New—June 3, 2014, Part 2

You may be wondering, “So what’s left for Part 2?” Good question. In Part 2, we’re going to show how all the new features work together to make family history easier than ever.