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Chrome Flex OS is a lightweight operating system from Google that can give new life to older computers. It's oriented towards streaming and internet browsing, and so it doesn't have a lot of the storage and processing capabilities included with the Windows or Mac OS. However, Chrome Flex OS can be an attractive alternative for users who may not be able or willing to upgrade their Windows platforms, for example. Another interesting use case would be for FamilySearch centers and libraries with older computers, who would rather focus on browsing while skipping Windows upgrades. In...
Bob Ives, Executive Director of The Family History Guide Association, a non-profit charitable organization, is organizing a GoFundMe fundraiser for The Family History Guide. Here is the information about The Family History Guide from the GoFundMe website: "The Family History Guide is a free website that represents a best-in-class learning environment for family history. Its scope is broad, but its focus is narrow enough to help you achieve your goals, step by step. Whether you're brand new to family history or a seasoned researcher—or somewhere in between—The Family History Guide can be your difference maker."...
We're back at it! Over the last week, the number of Guided Learning videos for The Family History Guide has grown from seven to 12. And yes, more are on the way in the weeks to come. You can find all these videos on our Guided Learning page in the Research Skills menu. Links to the newest videos are also included below for your convenience. Enjoy! Online Search Skills, Part 2 - Ryan Avoiding Basic Research Mistakes - Joshua Dealing with Record Problems - Joshua Finding Research Clues in Photographs, Part 1 - Amanda Finding...
Note: This article was published previously on the Genealogy's Star blog site. During the past five years, I have scheduled 1418 online consultations for FamilySearch.org. These consultations originated from the Salt Lake City FamilySearch Library website. There were dozens of people volunteering to respond to the consultation requests, mostly Church Service Missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The consultations have now been discontinued. The process began with the Genealogy Help link on the FamilySearch Library website. The official date of termination was 31August 2025. I volunteered to help with a variety of topics, but...
We are excited to introduce a new series of videos for The Family History Guide—Guided Learning. As of this writing there are seven videos, ranging from an overview of the series to online search techniques. Each video is accompanied by a personal guide who leads the learner through the course material. About Guided Learning The Guided Learning videos focus mostly on research techniques, using resources from The Family History Guide. They are based on material from the Class Outlines on the site but with a narrator who guides the learning experience. Each video directs the...
Last week we published a number of new videos on our Get Started page. The first two videos also have Spanish translations, but these are not translated just captions: the on-screen narrator speaks clear and authentic Spanish. Here are the two Spanish videos for your convenience, and more translated videos are on the way. https://share.synthesia.io/409338e7-bf15-41ca-a7bf-717a982a6c32 - Welcome to The Family History Guide https://share.synthesia.io/96af3832-7e16-4c7e-ae2f-f07fd4a38717 - The Family History Guide: Inside Story
We just created a new welcome video for The Family History Guide website. It's short - about 90 seconds in length - and engaging. You can find it on our YouTube Channel, and we have added it as the first video in the "Inside the Guide" section of the home page (upper right). The video is also included below for your convenience. Additional videos are on the way, so stay tuned for more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mem_YEgok08
For quite some we have had a series of slides in the upper-right corner of our home page, titled "Inside the Guide." These slides provide links to some interesting features of The Family History Guide. Last week we introduced a new Welcome video for the site and inserted it as the first slide option. Now we are excited to introduce new videos that will be taking the place of the slides, and the corner will be titled "Get Started." The new videos can be accessed by clicking the left or right arrow on each video...
As we celebrate our tenth year, we can't help but mention some of the unsung heroes of our journey. Working quietly behind the scenes is a group of dedicated people who are instrumental in creating and assembling our RootsTech booth. Each year our booth gets larger, and the setup team manages to pull off a three-day miracle. Planning for the physical booth starts eight months before the RootsTech show opens. Many of the booth items are custom-made by some of these team members, such as the 12-foot high by 14-foot long booth tower. The team loads a 20 foot...
"It says so in that record!" ... but is it really so? Sometimes the information we find in a record might not be a sure thing. Goal 7 of Project 4: Discover in the Family History Guide sheds some welcome light on potential problems with records. Here is a brief summary of the links to essential articles and videos you'll find there: Word Meanings - an article with examples of words that have a different meaning today than many years ago. Potential Problems with Records by Genealogy.com Dealing with Errors by James Tanner Misindexing -...
It's finally here: Friday, July 25, 2025 marks 10 incredible years for The Family History Guide! It has been quite a journey, and we are beyond grateful for the amazing support we have received from family history enthusiasts around the world. We have site vistors from over 150 countries, and The Family History Guide is featured in the Portal for all 5,000+ FamilySearch centers worldwide. To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we'd like to share a retrospective of important events and milestones in the story of The Family History Guide. Thanks for helping us make a...
Recently FamilySearch introduced the Together app on its website. Here's a brief description from a FamilySearch Help Center article: "Together by FamilySearch is an exciting new way for youth to connect with their parents, grandparents, and other family members. Users will find ways to develop stronger family bonds and create lasting memories through interactive games and activities." Here are the main features of the app: Stories (answer questions, record memories) Feed (see updates to ancestors for your group, create posts to share) Activities (try a variety of family history activities hosted on FamilySearch) To download...
We hope you all had an enjoyable and safe 4th of July weekend! Getting to know your Colonial America ancestors can be very enlightening, and there are quite a lot of records available. Here are some resources in The Family History Guide that will help you do that, arranged by category. Revolutionary War Research Intro video (Quick Research Basics) by James Tanner Finding a Patriot, Ancestry Academy video Researching Your Revolutionary War Ancestor, article by Thoughtco Daughters of the American Revolution website New England Research History and Background, FamilySearch video Top 10 Published Resources for...
This coming Wednesday, July 23, the BYU Family History Library will feature a webinar titled "Hidden Gems in The Family History Guide." The presentation will feature 25 great features, articles, and websites that you may have missed on the site but are certainly worth checking out. Here is the information for the webinar (first one in the list): You can join the live webinar on https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/learning/webinars and it will be posted on the BYU Family History Library YouTube channel about a week afterwards. See you there!
The Management Team of The Family History Guide Association is excited welcome David Aird as its newest member, acting as our Show Booth Technology Specialist. You can learn more about David below, as well as on the web page for The Family History Guide Association. David has been involved in the A/V and theatrical world most of his life. As a live event technician, he has worked in many venues around the Salt Lake Valley, including the Salt Palace, the LDS Conference Center, and Rice Eccles Stadium. He studied film production and communications at the University...
Thursday, July 24 marks the 178th anniversary of the Mormon pioneers arriving in the Salt Lake valley. There will be many celebrations throughout the state of Utah and other locations to commemorate this event. If you are interested in researching Mormon pioneer ancestors, The Family History Guide can help. Check out Goal F1 in the United States page. Choice B has links to some great articles and videos for getting started with Latter-day Saint research, including the following: How Do I Find LDS Church Records? BYUFamily History Library video LDS Church Records Class Handout, FamilySearch...
We are adding new Class Outlines to our collection. The Class Outlines can be used to deliver training to others on a wide variety of genealogy topics, or they can be used effectively as self-study methods. In eiter case, the Class Outlines are based on the content in The Family History Guide. The latest ones are for England counties: Bedfordshire Research (Goals 1-4) Bedfordshire Research, More (Goals 5-8) Berkshire Research (Goals 1-4) You can find all the Class Outlines in the Trainers menu of The Family History Guide. You can download or Our new intern,...
Note: This article appeared previously in the Genealogy's Star blog site. One basic fact about online family trees is their propensity to create duplicates. This apparently stems from the belief by each family tree contributor that their work is somehow unique and completely accurate. When this belief in uniqueness and accuracy is extended to the large online family tree websites, the results is the larger the family tree the more likely the possibility of duplication. A huge, collaborative, universal family tree such as the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is by its collaborative nature to provide a place for...
We have added a new QRB (Quick Research Basics) video by James Tanner, for researching genealogical records in Ukraine. This is Part 2 of the QRB series for Ukraine and brings the total number of QRB videos on our YouTube Channel to 93. The video is embedded in Choice B of Goal 1 of the Ukraine country page, and it's also included below for your convenience. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/8prYdN8DXCc
Maribel Medina is one of the rising stars in family history education, particularly for Latino audiences and research in Spanish. She is one of the interviewees in the upcoming Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid TV series on genealogy that features The Family History Guide. Maribel will be presenting multiple sessions at RootsTech 2025: Taller para Consultores I: Principios y Prácticas Efectivas para una Consulta Exitosa (Workshop for Consultants I: Principles and Effective Practices for a Successful Consultant) - Thursday at 4:30PM in Room 255A Taller para Consultores II: 7 Principios de Persuasión (Workshop for Consultants II: 7 Principles of Persuasion) - Friday at 4:30PM in Room 255A) Taller para Consultores III: Herramientas para Organizar tus Esfuerzos (Workshop for Consultants III: Tools for Organizing Your Efforts) - Saturday at 3PM in Room 255A) Note: This class will showcase The Family History Guide. Capacitando Consultores Alrededor del Mundo (Enabling Consultants around the World) - Saturday at 8AM in the Latin America Content & Learning Space in the Expo Hall
Note: This article appeared previously on the Genealogy's Star blog site. FamilySearch.orgI realize we are getting well into 2025, but I am always fascinated by what happened in the past year. FamilySearch.org had a banner year and from my standpoint, more than I can quickly learn about is coming in 2025. I do, however, have a few comments about the numbers for 2024. All this comes from an email sent to me on December 30, 2024. Here is the opening quote: SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—Join FamilySearch, the world’s largest nonprofit genealogy organization, in looking back at 2024 to recap some of its most notable highlights. FamilySearch celebrated its 130th anniversary as an organization in 2024, and the 25th anniversary of its popular website, FamilySearch.org. Millions of visitors made fun new ancestor discoveries during the year thanks to advancements in FamilySearch’s artificial intelligence, new historical records collections, and RootsTech by FamilySearch, which continued its global reach in helping individuals make new family connections. FamilySearch enjoyed more than 285 million visits from across the planet in 2024. Patrons frequented FamilySearch’s growing record collections, interactive discovery experiences like Surnames and Ancestors, and helpful articles on the FamilySearch Wiki and Blog. I am sure you are wondering how FamilySearch can claim to be 130 years old. The answer is very simple. FamilySearch is a trade name for The Genealogical Society of Utah. I have no doubt that the number of visits is accurate since I usually login to the FamilySearch.org website several times a day. The next section talks about the number of records using the measurement of searchable names. This is an interesting claim. FamilySearch currently has at least 5 different places on their website where you can search for names. The spectrum is from name searches, catalog searches, and page by page searches on digital images. If I have time, I will comment on this situation in the near future. The number of 20.5+ searchable names and images is probably a low estimate.The next subject is the FamilySearch Family Tree. The number of people in the FamilySearch Family Tree has to be adjusted for duplicates and some of us are painfully aware that there are still a huge number of duplicate names in the Family Tree. I also wonder is the number of sources is unique sources or simply a total of all the sources attached to all the people that would include multiple copies of the same source.Here is another quote. The world’s largest online family tree grew by more than 150 million people in 2024, totaling 1.67 billion searchable people. Contributors also added 530 million sources to their ancestors in the tree—which helps increase accuracy and collaboration. In addition, three new user features were added to the FamilySearch Family Tree: Merge Analysis Feature simplifies the ability to review and correct merges, and you can better understand the “before and after” of each merge. Portrait Pedigree View Update allows you to view siblings, a single-family line, and multiple family lines at the same time; add relatives quickly without leaving the page; and distinguish living individuals more easily. 3 Star Record Hints introduce a broader range of record considerations for experienced researchers to explore. There is a lot more to talk about but I will leave the rest for other posts on other days.
Today, January 20, celebrates the legacy of Martin Luther King, a pioneer Black leader and activist who promoted civil rights in the United States and gave his life for the cause. You can read about his life ana accomplishments in many books and websites, including Wikipedia. Part of the awareness he helped to raise is the connection between generations in America. The Family History Guide has a helpful section on tracing family roots for those who are of African descent. You can find it in the Ethnic section at the bottom of the Countries menu. Here's a brief summary of some of the useful resources you will find in those pages: Learn the basics of African American research. Use effective tips and techniques in African American research. Learn how find record sources for African American ancestors. Explore vital and census records. Explore newspaper records for African Americans. Explore other record types for African Americans. Learn about resources in various libraries and archives. Learn about other resources for research. Learn about the basic records that document slaves. Learn about the Freedmen's Bank and Freedmen's Bureau. Learn about the National Underground Railroad. Learn about African American research challenges and breakthroughs. Trace your slave ancestors before the Civil War. Use Facebook pages and other sources to get answers to your questions. In addition to these topics, there is also a Vault section in The Family History Guide, where you can find links to addtional videos and articles about African American genealogy research, and more topics and links on many of the individual U.S. state pages. We hope you enjoy these resources! [caption id=attachment_10543 align=aligncenter width=900] Attractive young man sitting on floor with laptop computer over map of US States.[/caption]
On Wed. January 22 I will be presenting a webinar for the popular BYU Family History Library sesires, titled New Training Tools in The Family History Guide. The webinar begins at 5 p.m. Mountain Time and is free. To register for the online event, go to this page: To join the webinar, wait until just before the start time and access this page: https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/learning/webinars Then click Join Live Webinar to attend. The webinar will cover new and existing training tools in The Family History Guide, such as Online Tracker Sheets, 2-Minute Demos, Quizzess, Class Outlines and more. It will also provide an update on training partnerships and developments. See you at the webinar!
It has been a while since we posted about the Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid project featuring The Family History Guide. So, let's get up to speed with what has been happening: We recently received the edited video footage for the 30-second commercial, the broadcast piece )about three minutes long), and the documentary (broadcast piece plus another three minutes. Our Management Team was very impressed with the work that Viewpoint has done, and we are looking forward to the rollout. The Family History Guide Association has signed off on the video content agreement, which means that the next step is to determine the broadcast schedule. Before the video segments are released, captions will be added to the footage to identify who is speaking at which point. The entire collection of footage that was shot on location in Riverton will be released to The Family History Guide Association. About six hours of filming was done to create the short video segments, and we will be taking the remainder of the footage and creating a series of additional short videos to go on our YouTube Channel. We will create a blog post when the broadcast schedule is finalized, so stay tuned - exciting things are ahead!
From time to time we add new features and items to The Family History Guide website, and when we do, they usually end up in a blog post like this. So here goes, with several things that have been added in the last few weeks ... 1. 70+ Tasks to Do with FamilySearch and The Family History Guide—This is a PDF you can download, and it describes over 70 meaningful tasks you can do using FamilySearch Family Tree and The Family History Guide. The tasks are divided into approximate skill levels, so there are plenty of things to do, for both beginners and more experienced users. The PDF has links that take you to instructions in The Family Hisory Guide for how to complete the tasks. You can also find the PDF in the Goal Tiles page of Project 1: FamilySearch. In the example below, B stands for Beginner Level and E stands for Experienced. 2. QUIKLinks and Practice Exercises—We have added over 100 new QUIKLinks to record collections from around the world in The Family History Guide, as well as about 10 new Record Search Practice Exercises. 3. 2-Minute Demos document—In the Trainers menu, there is an entry called 2-Minute Demos that helps you hit the highlights of The Family History Guide as you give brief website demos to others. The information is available on the page in hide / show links, and now we have added a standalone document you can download that has all the tips in one handy Google doc. Our booth workers for The Family History Guide will be using this document to prpare for giving website demos at RootsTech 2025. We hope you enjoy the latest additions to The Family History Guide. Be sure to stay tuned for the latest developments in our website, and thanks for your ongoing support!
When the Come, Follow Me program for Latter-day Saint scripture study came out in 2019, I remember a conversation I had with Angelle Anderson, our Marketing Director: Should we provide a weekly companion for it—one that focuses on family history? We jumped in, a bit nervous but excited, and here we are introducing the seventh yearly installment: Weekly Family History Activities for Come, Follow Me 2025: Doctrine and Covenants. Aside from a couple of years where Debbie Brady (Marketing Specialist) helped out, Angelle has shouldered the content burden for 52 lessons times 7, for a total of over 350 lessons. Now that we have completed the cycle of the four standard works we can borrow from previous content, as Come, Follow Me does; but it's still quite an undertaking. If you're not familiar with the Weekly Family History Activities, there are links at the top of that page that include a Schedule for the current year (all 52 lessons), plus links to previous years, the Weekly Family History Activities Facebook Group, and the Activities Index. Each lesson mirrors the theme of the current Come, Follow Me lesson, with activities, quotes, videos, pictures, and references that provide a rich temple and family history learning experience to complement the regular lesson. We hope you enjoy the new Weekly Family History Activities for 2005: Doctrine and Covenants. Here is a brief video from the Hi Five Live Facebook series, narrated by Scott Anderson, that introduces the upcoming lessons: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live?ref=watch_permalink&v=1106844707775723
We've added another video to our Inside the Guide playlist: England Sites and Databases. Each Inside the Guide video will highlight websites and databases featured in country pages of The Family History Guide. The videos do not have live links to the sites and databases, but they are easy to find in the Goals and Choices of The Family History Guide. The video is also included below for your convenience - enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRI2fS5euoY Stay tuned for more Inside the Guide videos highlighting the great sites and databases for research in your favorite countries!
Here's another addition to our Inside the Guide playlist: Germany Sites and Databases. Each Inside the Guide video will highlight websites and databases featured in country pages of The Family History Guide. The videos do not have live links to the sites and databases, but they are easy to find in the Goals and Choices of The Family History Guide. The video is also included below for your convenience - enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYWAvNcEoBI Stay tuned for more Inside the Guide videos highlighting the great sites and databases for research in your favorite countries!
This past year was a memorable one for The Family History Guide. Here's a look back at 20 of the events and website features that made 2024 a special year: 20. AI Goal added—With artificial intelligence being applied to genealogy in new ways, this new Goal in The Family History Guide helps you get up to speed on ChatGPT, handwriting recognition, language translation, and other AI tools. 19. New England FH Fair—This event in May would have had a much broader impact were it not for the untimely snowstorms that made local travel to the Fair difficult. Still, the attendees had a great time, with excellent speakers and fabulous scenery in upstate Vermont. 18. TFHG Intro video in Spanish—The English version of this video is on our list, below. This version offers Spanish-speaking guests a first look at The Family History Guide, with screenshots in Spanish and an emphasis on research in Latin American countries. 17. Video: Why I Love TFHG—This video gives a great youth perspective on family history and The Family History Guide, and it's narrated by a teen family history enthusiast. 16. Inside the Guide—This is a new playlist of videos on our YouTube Channel that highlights useful and interesting sites and databases mentioned in country pages of The Family History Guide. The first three videos are for Canada, Ireland, and Germany, with England and other countries to follow after. 15. Country Quizzes—We've had quizzes in the Trainers menu for quite a while, but recently we added 30 new quizzes for country pages, based on our QRB (Quick Research Basics) videos. Each quiz has 5 questions, with a passing score of at least 4 correct responses. 14. 2-Minute Demos—There's a new entry in the Trainers menu for 2-Minute Demos. It includes quick and easy quotes you can use when introducing others to The Family History Guide, arranged by these categories: Website Overview, More Features, Country Pages, United States Research, Activities, and Trainers. 13. TFHG on Paper—While there's no printed book for The Family History Guide, there's a two-page summary of features that can easily be used as a handout when giving a presentation about the website. 12. 70+ Tasks for FamilySearch and The Family History Guide—Looking for traction with FamilySearch tasks? This PDF outlines over 70 things you can do on FamilySearch, assisted by The Family History Guide. Links are included to TFHG topics that help you complete the tasks. 11. Enhanced Countries menu—We've added regional entries for the Caribbean, Central America, and Africa, while removing North America (it's covered in the other entries). More country links have also been added in several of the regions. 10. NGS Virtual Conference—This conference for the National Genealogical Society was all-virtual in 2024, and it was very successful. It used the Whova online platform to link up presenters, exhibitors, keynotes and members, and The Family History Guide Association had a good presence at the conference. 9. 5-Minute Features videos—On our YouTube Channel we created a 5-Minute Features playlist. It includes a number of brief videos that introduce you to key features in The Family History Guide and provide tips on using them effectively. 8. Online Tracker Sheets—Need an alternative to the Online Tracker database for tracking your learning progress? Try the new Online Tracker Sheets. They are Google Sheets you can download and edit, with the ability to add and customize entries, get more typing space, etc. 7. New Practice Exercises—There are now over 800 Record Search Practice Exercises in The Family History Guide, spanning most countries in the world as well as U.S. states. These help you get practical experience using a wide variety of records to solve sample research problems. 6. TFHG Intro video, 2024—We updated the 20-minute Intro video for The Family History Guide on the Home Page, to provide a website overview and highlight new features. This video can be especially useful for organizations that present The Family History Guide and would like a handy review online. 5. Brent Bunker, Content Specialist—This year we welcomed Brent Bunker, from Newport, Oregon, to our Management Team as a Content Specialist. Brent has already created hundreds of new Practice Exercises and updated QUIKLinks for record collections around the world. 4. Weekly FH Activities, updated—Our Marketing Director, Angelle Anderson, devoted a tremendous amount of time in updating the Weekly Family History Activities that serve as a family history companion to the Come, Follow Me lessons. We are now working on completing the series for 2025. 3. RootsTech 2024—The Family History Guide Association had a terrific year at RootsTech 2024, with a large exhibitor booth near FamilySearch and plenty of classes delivered by Management Team members such as James Tanner, Miles Meyer, Scott and Angelle Anderson, and Bob Taylor. Preparations are underway for the RootsTech 2025 experience. 1. (Tie) Partnership: NGS and TFHG—In February the National Genealogical Society (NGS) announced an educational partnership with The Family History Guide Association, who will provide NGS member organizations with training on using The Family History Guide to accelerate the learning and research progress of members and teams. 1. Viewpoint Project—Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid is a popular educational series that is broadcast on PBS and its affiliates across the U.S. Early in 2025 The Family History Guide will be featured in videos that will reach an estimated 60 to 80 million Americans, helping to introduce many to genealogy as a pastime or a lifelong pursuit.
The Management Team of The Family History Guide would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family and friends a safe and happy holiday season. We are grateful for your ongoing support for and interest in family history, and the work you do connect generations together. There is much today that may be worrisome to many of us, including political divides, ongoing wars, and human suffering. Remembering our families and ancestors and the sacrifices they made for us can help us find greater meaning in our lives and more willingness to work together as a human family. This year I visited Thanksgiving Point Gardens in Utah. I saw beautiful bronze statues of a woman seated on a bench in grief from her trials, and an angel - perhaps an ancestor - offering her comfort. As I watched, a three-year-old boy sat down on the bench next to the statue-woman and talked with her for several minutes in an effort to cheer her up. His mother shared with me that he often takes opportunites to help others feel better. The fact that she was a statue did not deter him in the least. May your homes and hearts be filled with joy and peace this holiday, and may we find occasions to lift others and share our good will and love! Sincerely, The Family History Guide Association
Here's another addition to our Inside the Guide playlist: Ireland Sites and Databases. Each Inside the Guide video will highlight websites and databases featured in country pages of The Family History Guide. The videos do not have live links to the sites and databases, but they are easy to find in the Goals and Choices of The Family History Guide. The video is also included below for your convenience - enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPX7TGT71I Stay tuned for more Inside the Guide videos highlighting the great sites and databases for research in your favorite countries!
Our YouTube Channel currently has over 250 videos on a wide variety of family history topics. We are now adding a new playlist with a series of upcoming videos: Inside the Guide. Each Inside the Guide video will highlight websites and databases featured in country pages of The Family History Guide. The videos do not have live links to the sites and databases, but they are easy to find in the Goals and Choices of The Family History Guide. We are excited to share the first video in the series: Inside the Guide - Canada. It's part of the playlist, and it's included below for your convenience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Te8lGVm_vw Stay tuned for more Inside the Guide videos highlighting the great sites and databases for research in your favorite countries!
You have to admit - activities can be a fun and meaningful way for anyone to get involved in family history, from seniors to kids. One of the challenges that sometimes comes up is time: preparation time for activities, and a shorter duration. Many of the over 200 family history activities in The Family History Guide need little preparation, and now we have added a great collection of 5-Minute Activities to the site. You can find these new activities in the header area of each activities page. For example: Below is a small sample of what you'll find with these new activities: We hope you enjoy the new 5-Minute Activities for Everyone in The Family History Guide!
When we think about what an individual's part of FamilySearch Family Tree may look like, there's a wide range of possibilities. Some people are just starting to build their tree information, while others have extensive pedigrees that go back many generations on many lines. And of course, there are lots of variations in between for countless other users. So if you are wondering what to do next on FamilySearch, or you'd like some suggestions for someone you're helping with FamilySearch, 70+ Family History Tasks You Can Do with FamilySearch & The Family History Guide is for you. This handy PDF document has tasks recommended for beginners or more experienced users, to help people spend meaningful and productive time in FamilySarch. It also as well as links to places in The Family History Guide where you can get help with learning how to do the recommended tasks. Here's a brief glimpse at the beginning of the list: Other secions include Memories, Indexing, Research, Getting Help, and Helping Others. There is also a section at the end for tasks that Latter-day Saints will find useful. We hope you enjoy the new 70+ Family History Tasks You Can Do with FamilySearch & The Family History Guide PDF. There is also a link to it in The Family History Guide, on the Goals page for FamilySearch Project 1.
RootsTech 2025 is shaping up to be a super event next March, and The Family History Guide Association will be back again in the Exhibit Hall of the Salt Palace. Our booth space this year is our largest ever, and we'll have website demos, classes, giveaways and games through the course of RootsTech. The map below shows our location in the Exhibit Hall. Last year we were in the back part of #613, next to FamilySearch, but this year we have moved to the central aisle with booth #1413 (in red). This is a great spot for hall traffic, and we are next to BYU Pathways on the left and the National Genealogical Society across the aisle. Our booth layout will likely be demo stations on the left side and the tower and class area on the right side. Note: the map is a preliminary view of the Exhibit Hall and is subject to change, as new vendors come and participate. If you're at RootsTech in Salt Lake City, be sure to stop by our booth, say hello, and grab some flyers and pass-along cards to take with you.
Editor's Note: This article by was previously published in the Genealogy's Star blog site . After you have reviewed a few thousand documents, you will work out your own method for analyzing the document or record and the information contained in the document or record. But meanwhile, it is a good idea to think about the process and make sure that you ask a series of questions before blindly copying the information and sticking it into someone on your family tree. Here is an example of a document suggested by FamilySearch.org as a Record Hint for the Reverend Alonzo Torrey (b. 1813, d. 1892). https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9768108 This is a FindAGrave.com entry. This entry is in my part of the Family Tree because one of my relatives married Torrey when he was 78 years old and she was 41 years old. He only lived one year after the marriage date. Why this all occurred after my relative had been married previously and had two children is not yet explained. But let's look at the FindAGrave entry. First of all, It is obviously the right person. The entry makes no mention of the late-in-life marriage but that might be expected. In this particular case, the birth and death dates on the grave marker match the ones in FamilySearch. Now we need to ask the standard questions about the information contained in the FindAGrave memorial. Where did the event occur? What are the levels of jurisdiction What was the date of the event? Who recorded the event? When was the event recorded? How was the report preserved? Is this a copy of the original report? There can be more or fewer questions but this list is sufficient for the present post series. FindAGrave.com is basically a website that has a database of cemeteries and graves. There seems to be no controversy over the location of the burial (the event) in Flint, Genesee, Michigan, United States. The jurisdictional question is partially answered by the location. There is a death date but no burial year. We don't know who recorded the event because there is no indication as to who paid for and erected the grave marker. We also do not know when the dates were recorded. The grave marker could have been placed contemporaneously with the burial but usually, the marker is placed sometime after the burial. The events were recorded on the grave marker itself but it may or may not be the original marker. Are any of these dates original?' No. All of the information on the website, including the images, are user-submitted. While grave markers are usually accurate about the death or burial date, they are not necessarily accurate about the birth date. On the other hand, these might be the most accurate dates available at all. This is one reason that the dichotomy created by the legalistic terms such as primary vs. secondary lose their usefulness. Arguably, someone who knew the deceased person paid for and placed the grave marker. They probably knew first hand the person's birth, death, and burial dates. The only reason that a researcher would seriously doubt the accuracy of these dates on the grave marker is if there were other documents and records with conflicting information. What if there were no image of the grave marker. Then the information loses its veracity and becomes no better or worse than an unsupported entry in an online family tree. Can we tell from the FindAGrave.com entry who supplied the information? Yes, usually there is a contact name and this may be a way to verify the information supplied. For the previous parts of this series see the following: Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-analyze-genealogical-sources.html Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-analyze-genealogical-sources_17.html Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-analyze-genealogical-sources_20.html Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-analyze-genealogical-sources_29.html Part Five: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2020/05/how-to-analyze-genealogical-sources.html
On December 11 Bob Ives and Bob Taylor will present an hour-long training session on The Family History Guide for the Missionary Development Team (Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission), for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This team is comprised of family history missionaries who serve for a year, helping others with their family history and doing assignments such as the following: Assisting patrons in person, by email, by telephone, or on the internet to do family history and Church history research. Acquiring and preserving family history records. Indexing names for temple ordinances. Resolving ordinance record issues. Working with oral histories. Providing training on how to do family history research. Processing digital records. Providing related documents to off-site patrons. Working with Church historical records and journals. The training session will cover new activities with The Family History Guide Assocation and recent updates and new features in The Family History Guide website. Bob and Bob have presented several times to their team, and it is always a interesting and engaging experience. You can learn more about the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission here: https://www.familysearch.org/en/info/family-history-mission/utah-headquarters
A few days ago I received an email from Aimee Cross, a friend and fellow genealogist (The Family History Guide has quite a few links to videos on her popular YouTube channel). Aimee lives in my home town—Camarillo, California—and part of that city had been devastated by the recent Mountain Fire, which burned over 50,000 acres and destroyed over 100 homes. I had been wondering about her and if she and her home and family were okay. I was just about to reach out to her when I got her email. She had been out of town at the time of the fire, and fortunately her home was not affected. My childhood home is less than a mile away from the extent of the fire, and I found out that five families in the Latter-day Saint ward of my youth were lost, although there were no injuries. The firefighters and emergency personnel did an amazing job considering the steep terrain of the hills and gale-force Santa Ana winds. Aimee shared a poignant video of the fire-affected area, along with reminders that family memories such as photos and documents need to be backed up digitally, as disasters can occur swiftly and without warning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f74KPXWYADo As we prepare for Thanksgiving in the United States this coming Thursday, what's truly important to us? I think most of us would answer that family, including our ancestors and their memories, would certainly be prominent on that list. Let's all take some time at this wonderful holiday season and reflect on our blessings and the service and sacrifice our ancestors made for us. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for your support of The Family History Guide!
A few years ago we produced a YouTube video that outlined the story of The Family History Guide, including its beginnings and progress through 2022. We have recently updated the video, changing some slides for personnel and adding exciting new updates to the content. The sections of the video are: A Simple Idea The Idea Evolves Opening Doors People Power What's Next You can view the newly updated video on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9uz02krCoI We hope you enjoy TFHG - The Inside Story, 2025!