Recent questions and some answers

What is RootsTech?

RootsTech is the Church's HUGE annual family history conference of the year. It is co-sponsored by companies that serve family history. (Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, findmypast.com, etc.)

I have heard RootsTech described in many ways, including "A rock concert for family history." and
"A technological extravaganza centered on family history." Basically, there is something for everyone.
Whether you are looking for fun activities for your family, the latest research tips, or preserving your family heritage for future generations, you will probably find something there that is useful and fun.

One of the best things about RootsTech is that many of the sessions can be viewed years later. If you are looking for training or information on any related topic, try searching RootsTech. We do!

You can register to view the online sessions of RootsTech 2025 for free and watch at your own convenience. Or you can pay to attend in person. Both options have their advantages.

One of my personal favorites is "Relatives at RootsTech", where I can see distant cousins from other parts of the world who are also attending. (As a convert, I don't have as many of these as you may have. - Bill)

The Power of "Alert Notes"
The most frequent complaint about the FamilySearch Family Tree is "Other people can change the information."
This is because Family Tree is designed to be editable, so that all registered users can contribute.
Experienced users are seldom a problem, the usual problem is inexperienced users with incomplete or inaccurate information. How can we prevent them from replacing well-researched information with something interesting they have seen recently on social media?
Alert Notes can be your best friend in this situation. To create an Alert Note, click Collaborate > Add Note > write your note, put a check mark in the Alert Note box. and then Save. This will place the following caution on the Details screen. "Important research has been done on this person. Please read these alert notes before making changes."
And you can click on Follow so that you are informed when changes have been made to that record.
You can normally use the Latest Changes list to undo changes too.

An interesting presentation at RootsTech 2024 - It is an hour long but if you are a Consultant (or family member) wishing to create a family history discovery experience for someone, check this out.
Discoveries Await with Ordinances Ready - Webinar by Lynzi Kidman Coffey of FamilySearch
She tells how to use Ordinances Ready as a starting point for a motivational 30-minute discovery experience.
(This is a much faster and easier way than the old method that used Descendancy Research.)
"Using simple, repeatable steps, you will easily build confidence in yourself and in those you are guiding."

"How can I sync my PAF database with the FamilySearch Family Tree?"
I recently had a phone call from a distant cousin asking how to do this. (We both had a chuckle over the fact that we both still have a PAF database.) My suggestion was to use Ancestral Quest or Roots Magic to do this.
For many years I used Ancestral Quest to do this twice a year, using the Last Changed Date in my PAF database. But these days, the FamilySearch Family Tree is my main database. That is where I put my latest research. (Currently, I am focusing on using Ancestry's newly-released 1921 census of England and Wales as a source.
And since this is outside of FamilySearch, I use RecordSeek to add the sources to FamilySearch.) – Bill

Changing the Focus Person on the Source Linker page
(In the case of marriage documents I do not find this process intuitive at all. - Bill)
Q: How do you get the child's spouse to appear in the correct spot in the Source Linker?
A: Click Change Person on the left side (the document's side) of the screen. Then select the son or daughter whose marriage is recorded on the document.
Now their spouse will automatically appear in the correct spot so that you can attach the source to their record in the Family Tree (and add them to the Family Tree if they are missing.)
Q: How to move the spouse's parents into the correct spot?
A: Click Change Person and select the spouse as the focus person. This will pop the spouse's parents to the top, where you can attach the source to their records in the Family Tree (and add them to the Family Tree if they are missing.)
Note: Complicated multi-generational census documents may require you to also use Change Person on the Family Tree side of the screen to change the focus person in the Family Tree to a parent, child, or sibling.
And you may need to drag names on the document side up or down to match names on the Family Tree side of the screen.
The Source Linker is a wonderful tool but it has its own peculiarities.
(For a detailed tutorial, you can view this 70 minute video from BYU Family History Library)

Q: Can you reserve temple ordinances for unrelated people?
A: Since January 1st, I noticed that this is not possible unless it is done automatically through Ordinances Ready.(We have long been asked to focus on ordinances for our ancestral families, but others used to be possible.)

Q: How can I print (or email) charts from Family Tree for a non-member (that excludes ordinance data)?
A: Click your username in the upper right-hand corner > Settings > Account > Show Temple Options > Off (Remember to change this setting back when you have generated the PDF document.)
There may be other ways to accomplish this task, but this is the one we usually recommend.
(I was reminded of this when emailing a family group record to someone in Slovakia this week.)

Just as you schedule time to commune with God, try to schedule time to serve your ancestral families.

Basic Family History Training

 

Basic Family History Training (Edmonton Alberta North Stake. revised for 2025)

1. Why is it important? Family history and temple work can strengthen the family relationships and testimonies of the living, And it can help the dead to be redeemed through their faith in Jesus Christ. The basic doctrine is as taught by the ancient apostles, Peter and Paul in the New Testament: Christ preached the gospel to the spirits in prison so that they could accept Christ as their Savior and progress along the same path as the living. 1 Peter 4:6
They need earthly ordinances that we can provide. (1 Cor 15:29) This is also plainly taught in D&C 138.
President Russell M Nelson has urged us to gather Israel on both sides of the veil.

2. Ordinances Ready in the Temple menu of the website or app allows you to reserve temple ordinances and print temple cards in about 10 minutes. Where does it find related people needing ordinances? Firstly, in your list of reserved ordinances, then those shared with the temple by other patrons, then related people whose ordinances have not yet been reserved, and lastly unrelated people.
For it to find related people, you need to be connected to your deceased generations in Family Tree.
Note that these cards are intended to be used within 120 days, or others can do these ordinances.

3. To book a session at the Temple: Click the Temple menu at www.familysearch.org
Click Schedule Temple Appointment > Schedule Appointment > Sign-in > Select this temple > Select the ordinance > Indicate if your spouse is also attending > Click the calendar to select a date and time.

4. FamilySearch.org is the only website where you can reserve temple ordinances and print temple cards for your ancestors and their descendants. This can be be done in a web browser or our Family Tree mobile app.

5. Research expectations: How far back can you trace your ancestry in historical records? It varies.
In some places few records exist But in Europe, records of common people occasionally go back to the 1500's, Records of hereditary titles of nobility and royalty may go back much, much further.
The FamilySearch Research Wiki can tell you what records are available for the country you are interested in.
It also makes us aware of useful unfamiliar record types, and to avoid looking for records that don't exist. (Familysearch.org > Search > Research Wiki)

6. Family Tree now uses Indexing data to automatically find records of your ancestors and their families.
An estimated 70%-80% of all Indexed records will be suggested as Record Hints (blue icons) in Family Tree.
These Hints sometimes list additional family members, that need ordinances.
So in many cases the records now come looking for you, instead of you looking for them.
Free accounts from some large commercial sites: https://www.familysearch.org/access/member-subscriptions

7. FamilySearch.org Memories, and our Memories mobile app are excellent places for preserving photos, documents, stories, and even short audio recordings. These can help your family members to connect to their ancestors on a more personal level.

8. Preparing names for the temple:
In order to do ordinances for someone. they need a record in Family Tree with a minimum of this information:
their name, sex, approximate year and place of a major life event (birth, christening, marriage, death, or burial). The person must have been dead at least 30 days, so they have had time to accept the gospel beyond the veil.
If they were born in the last 110 years you need to be an immediate family member or have permission of an immediate family member (parent, child, sibling or un-divorced spouse).
Note that the date and place of birth can often be estimated from marriage or births of children, This can help familysearch.org to automatically find historic records for the individual.

If the necessary information is not available now, it will be, in the Millenium. For now, we do what we can.
FamilySearch's toll-free Help number is 1-866-406-1830  
by Bill Buchanan, Stake Consultant 

A personal perspective on helping in family history:

There is a common misconception that Consultants need to be experts at all things concerning family history. But that is the role of FamilySearch Support. Consultants should be actively helping with routine things such referring members to the bishop if they need to get a temple recommend, using Ordinances Ready, booking into a temple session, adding names and corrections to Family Tree, reserving ordinances and printing temple cards. 

Any additional skills are a bonus. Much is learned through personal experience. 

To reach free FamilySearch Support in North America, call 1-866-406-1830
(8 am to 8 pm Mon-Sat or 1 pm to 8 pm Sun) 

or email North America Support at nasupport@familysearch.org

- Bill Buchanan

Researching on other websites ("The world is your oyster!")

Using RecordSeek to create sources in FamilySearch

From Research Helps on the Person page you can search other websites, and of course you can search other websites from any other tab in your browser. But when you find good information out there, how do you add it to a source in Family Tree?

The easiest way I know is to use the free RecordSeek bookmark in my browser.
To add the RecordSeek bookmark, I need to go to recordseek.com and drag the bookmark button to my browser's Bookmark toolbar. (If the Bookmark toolbar is hidden, press Shift+Ctrl+B)

To use this tool:
1. Click the Family Tree ID of the person, to copy it to your computer's clipboard.

2. Highlight the information you found on the other website,

3. Click the RecordSeek bookmark,

4. Select FamilySearch in the popup,

5. Click Next, and when asked "Search by Person ID Number" paste it in.

6. Click Next and click Create & Attach, then close the popup.

A source has been created in that person's Family Tree record, quoting the highlighted information.
(This is especially handy when quoting sources that may otherwise be inaccessible on subscription sites.)
Then I like to go to the person's Sources list in Family Tree and add the year, so that the new source appears in the correct chronological order.

 The first time you do this it may take 10 minutes or more. The 30th time it may take 30 seconds or less.
(I find that occasionally I need to launch RecordSeek twice to get it to work, but it is still a real time saver.)

Easily uploading multipage documents

You may have seen attempts to upload multipage documents as a series of individual files.

This can be done but the results are seldom satisfactory to you as the reader. You read a page and then you need to find a file containing the next page and then find the next page, etc. This is very awkward.

The idea is excellent, but the method is flawed, Ideally you will convert the multipage document to PDF format so that the whole book is a single file. PDF also has the advantage of being able to use a variety of different fonts and layouts including images. Images take up a lot of storage apace, but 2000 pages of text can easily fit within the 15 GB size limit allowed by FamilySearch. 

If you have written a book. create a PDF copy from your word processor by using File > Save As or File > Export, or File > Print > Print to PDF. Then upload the PDF file to FamilySearch memories.

For example, see "Ancestors of Ernest (Robert) Kinney"
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/L492-3Z6
(This is a short book, generated by genealogy software and enhanced in a word processor.)  

If you want to create a PDF from a series of separate page images (eg. JPEGs), the process is more complicated, If your scanner has the option, load the pages into the document feeder and choose Scan to PDF. Then run the resulting file through Optical Character Recognition to convert the images of text to actual text, greatly reducing the file size.

Alternately, you can import the page images into the word processor and export the file as PDF, The page images take up a lot of storage apace, creating a huge file, but OCR may reduce it to a usable size.

If OCR software did not come with your scanner, there are sites online that do OCR conversions,

What re the responsibilities of Consultants?

Consultants are our "front line" workers. They are listed online as the people to go to for help.

What are the specific responsibilities of our callings in Temple and Family History?
These can be found in the General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
For example:

25.2.4 Ward (or Branch) Temple and Family History Consultants
Ward temple and family history consultants serve under the direction of the ward temple and family history leader. The bishopric calls these members to serve. Adults and youth may be called. The elders quorum, Relief Society, and Young Women presidents may suggest who could serve.

Consultants teach others in simple ways how to participate in temple and family history work. They have the following responsibilities:

Help members prepare to receive temple ordinances and make temple covenants.

Help members experience the blessings of discovering their ancestors and performing temple ordinances on their behalf. These experiences are especially important for those learning the gospel, new and returning members, and those preparing to receive a recommend for proxy baptisms and confirmations.

Participate in temple and family history coordination meetings (see 25.2.7).

Serve in a local FamilySearch center when assigned (see 25.3.6). [If you had this assignment you would know.]

A personal perspective on helping in family history (Bill Buchanan):
There is a common misconception that Consultants need to be experts at all things concerning family history. But that is the role of FamilySearch Support. Consultants should be able to help with routine things such referring members to the bishop if they need to get a temple recommend, using Ordinances Ready, booking into a temple session, adding people to Family Tree, reserving ordinances and printing temple cards. Any additional skills are a bonus. Much is learned through personal experience. 

To reach free FamilySearch Support, call 1-866-406-1830 (8 am to 8 pm Mon-Sat or 1 pm to 8 pm Sun)  or email North America Support at nasupport@familysearch.org