Edmonton Temple and Family History Fair

 

Finding Recent Relatives (Using Sites Like Find a Grave)

This can be a big challenge because official records of recent decades are often hidden to protect privacy. There are common ways around this limitation.

1. Ask relatives who are still living, if they can provide you with information, or if they know who can.

2. Look for them in online obituary notices and other records from newspapers. (Google the family name and location.)

3. Use local/community history books. e.g. Alberta Local History Books
https://www.abgenealogy.ca/uploads/files/Resources/AlbertaHistories.pdf

4. Look for relatives in cemetery sites like Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com

An Example of What You Might Find at Find a Grave:
This is about as good as it gets on Find a Grave: photos, bio, parents, spouse, siblings, children, sources.
It depends on what other users of Find a Grave have contributed. You can contribute too.

Complex Family Relationships

I had a phone call from a friend yesterday. "I am helping someone whose mother had children with two different men before marrying a third and having children with him. He also had children from a previous marriage, and adopted her children. How can I help her put all of this in Family Tree?"

I explained that Family Tree can easily record all of these relationships. If she goes to the mother's record she can Add Spouse as often as necessary. Likewise for her father. And when the children are added, remember that children can be shown with multiple sets of parents. You can edit the Parent-Child Relationship to specify the type of relationship: Adoptive, Biological. Foster, Guardianship, Step

Click the Edit icon (pencil) on the child's relationship line and select the parent and choose the relationship type from the drop-down list.

In this member's situation, she can list her mother's three biological families, add her mother's husband's prior children as her mother's step children. and that her mother's prior children are her husband's adopted children, etc.  

(See this short video.)
Add Relationship Type in Family Search | LDS Family History Tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vrJNrg8YvQ

The easy way to add the children to another set of parents is to go to the Person page of the shared parent and copy and paste the IDs of the children from one spouse's family into the other spouse's family.

Note that prior to the 1900s, adoptions were often informal, without any legal paperwork. But the relationships were still adoptions.

I was glad to find this helpful video. Give it a "Like" if it is helpful to you.

Making a difference?

We sometimes wonder if our efforts make a difference. Some of us are in our most productive (and demanding) years, when we may struggle to keep up with it all.

Others of us find ourselves unwillingly idle. We may be old and we may even have thoughts such as "Why am I still alive? What good can I do any more?"  

As someone who is retired but not able to serve a mission, I try to contribute to FamilySearch.

Out of curiosity, I clicked SHOW YOUR STATS on Get involved > Opportunities. I was amazed at what it displayed. Here is part of it. So by doing a little research and verifying place names in recent months, I have helped members take deceased relatives to the temple yesterday? Wow! 

I encourage you to continue your own efforts, whatever they may be. They DO make a difference. 

Thank you for helping! - Bill Buchanan, Stake Consultant

Recovering Access to a FamilySearch Account

 

Recovering Access to a FamilySearch Account
As consultants, a frequent task is helping someone who cannot get into their FamilySearch account.
This usually means that they have forgotten their username or password or both.
The solution begins by clicking Sign In, then Forgot username or password, then select Email or Mobile Number and click OK and follow the steps. Then ask them to write their username and password and put it in their wallet.

See: How Do I Recover My FamilySearch Username and Password (about 2 minutes long)
https://youtu.be/4KHxXU4DEWk

What if both the email and mobile number have been changed?
Remember that we can call the toll-free FamilySearch Support number for help.
1-866-406-1830

(As a last resort, I might suggest trying the Sign Up option, in the hope that the system will find an existing account based on the same name and address. But I would try the other options first.)

What are the rules for usernames and passwords?
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/what-are-the-rules-for-my-username-and-password

Impossible Merges Made Simple in Family Tree

Often merges are impossible because one record shows that the person is living and the other shows them as deceased. 

If both records really are for the same person, correct the record that is wrong, and you can merge them without difficulty. 

To Merge By ID: copy the ID of one duplicate, then go to the Person Page of the other duplicate and click Merge By ID and paste or input the ID from the first duplicate.

Researching our Recent Ancestors

Researching our Recent Ancestors (despite the privacy restrictions on public records)

This topic is especially important for recent converts and others who are just getting started in family history. I went through this process myself. I interviewed my parents, surviving grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and beyond. I recorded the information and added it to FamilySearch and its predecessors. I am glad that I did!

Some of us come from places where historical records are readily available. Others do not. But if most of us are looking for information about our parents and grandparents, we will be blocked by privacy laws, designed to protect living people. Even if the people we are researching are deceased, their information may be in the time period that is blocked, typically the most recent 100 years.

RESOURCES
Recently I found an excellent podcast from Lisa Louise Cooke, (one of my favorite family history podcasters). She has lots of helpful suggestions.

Why Dad Becomes the Forgotten Ancestor https://lisalouisecooke.com/2026/06/16/fathers/

Another site listed these resources for recent ancestors:
1931 and 1926 Canada censuses
Passenger Lists & Border Crossings
WWI Personnel Files
Newspapers
Vital Records    [Occasionally, but this is where we tend to run into the privacy barrier.]
Gravestones & Memorials    [Findagrave is wonderful, as are some other cemetery databases.]

[Definitely add Local History Books to the list, if you are researching in Canada.]

INTERVIEWING RELATIVES 
As a new convert, I went through the process of interviewing close and distant relatives. Most were glad to help. 

My usual approach was "Hi, I am Bill Buchanan and I am trying to build a family tree for my family.
I wonder if you would be willing to help me?" 

I made no reference to the Church because I knew some relatives would find that a distraction.

Lists of interview questions can be found on various sites online. This is one of them.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/img_auth.php/4/4a/Interview_Questions.pdf
You can edit the list of questions to meet your needs and interests.

(I kept a few blank family group records handy, for recording the information and especially the relationships.)

CHARTS
Family Group Records and Pedigree charts simplify the process of adding what you learn to the FamilySearch Family Tree. I find the Person Details screen the easiest place to add information to the right person in Family Tree. (As a newbie, I accidentally switched my grandparents' own parents, so I know how easy it is to make such mistakes and how to correct them.)

I prefer a 1-page Family Group Record such as 

https://www.cs.williams.edu/~bailey/genealogy/index_files/FamilyRecordSheet.pdf

But a 2-paage version printed on both sides of the same paper can hold even more information, such as 

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/genealogy/charts-forms/family-group-sheet.pdf

If you are dealing with several generations of the family, a few Pedigree/Ancestral charts will make it easier to keep things organized. 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/img_auth.php/e/ed/Pedigree_Chart_no_ordinances.pdf

I wish you success and special experiences as you spend time learning about your family.

- Bill Buchanan

Ordinances of a Deceased Person Are Hidden. Why???

Recently a friend asked how he could see the ordinances of his uncle who passed away two years ago.  I explained that Membership Department probably thinks he is still alive. I suggested that he ask his ward clerk to request the membership record and then record the death. Then Membership Department will make his record visible on FamilySearch and his ordinances will be shown.

This reminded me of my European friends wanting to be sealed to their parents last year. So I checked their mother's record. Her live and proxy ordinances are now visible, including sealing to her husband. 

The sealings of the living children are not shown in order to protect their own privacy.

But I am confident they happened. Bravo!

[NOTE: Ordinances of deceased excommunicated people become visible when their blessings have been restored.]

The power of a shared family tree

I attended the May 30th Single Adults Family History Activity hosted by the Edmonton North Stake and Spruce Grove Stake. My role was to help participants with their family history. I experienced something that seems miraculous to me. 

One of the participants asked for help with his family tree. He had been using Ordinances Ready to print temple cards, but he wanted to do ordinances for his own family. 

When he signed into FamilySearch, I noticed that his tree consisted of 4 people: him, his mother, his estranged father and his father's mother. That was not much to go on, when public records of the most recent 100 years are unavailable to protect the privacy of living people. How could we bridge that 100-year gap?

We needed a few miracles. I asked if his parents could provide any additional information.  He agreed to phone his mother, and she was able to provide the information on her own parents and grandparents, and the names of his father's parents. These were the clues we needed to move forward. Google searches found obituaries and other helps. Each obituary provided birth and death information and identified the deceased person's parents and siblings. One clue led to another. With lots of heavenly help, in less than 3 hours, his 7-generation fan chart looked as complete as mine. For comparison, I have been working on mine for over 60 years!

There is absolutely no guarantee of this kind of success. The person I was helping had relatives on both sides of his family, who had previously added family members to Family Tree. We just needed to find them and connect him to them. This is part of the power of FamilySearch, where everyone is working on a shared family tree, instead of thousands of tiny separate family trees. Often, if you can add a few generations to Family Tree, it will connect to research that goes back much further.

I have a testimony of the power of family history and temple work to bless the living and the dead. The miracles continue and I want to be part of them. The Savior invites us to help in his work of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. 

- Bill Buchanan, Spruce Grove Stake Consultant

BILL'S QUICK GUIDE FOR FAMILYSEARCH MEMORIES

 BILL'S QUICK GUIDE FOR FAMILYSEARCH MEMORIES

Adding Memories - The Choices Are: 
Add Photo or Document (upload files)
Write a Story (write in plain text - maybe 10 minutes worth) Longer items should be written in a word processor and saved/exported as PDF and then uploaded. This is especially true of multi-page documents.
Add an Audio (create or upload)

Once items have been uploaded they are safely stored for the future. 

Some Limits:

• Maximum of 1000 Memories per profile/Person Page
• Public Memories should not identify living people. 
• Maximum size of any one Memories item is 15 MB.
• Only non-proprietary file formats are supported, so if one format is not accepted try another format.
• If you have trouble uploading photos try one of these file formats PNG, PDF/A, JPG or JPEG or JPEG 2000.
• Images that may be rejected: violence, advertising, nudity, kissing. (If automatic screening fails, ask why the photo is rejected.)
• Videos cannot be uploaded.

Suggestions:

• PDF is the best format for multi-page text items. e,g, books and other word processor documents
• Multi-page PDF files do not work well for page images, where each page is actually a huge photo. (15 MB limit)
• If scanning images, use a minimum of 300 dpi (300 pixels per inch) to preserve a good image quality.
• The easiest way to create and upload audio files is from your phone using the Memories mobile app.
• Audio files are usually limited to about 5 minutes in length to fit in the 15 MB limit.
• (With considerable tinkering in the free Audacity software I have been able to compress 30 minutes into 15 MB.) 
• All Memories should be tagged to people in the Family Tree. Otherwise people may not find them.
• Items in Memories can be added to Albums that you create in FamilySearch. Albums can be accessed by anyone who has the Album's link even without a FamilySearch account, so it is an easy way to share Memories.
• You can instantly colorize black and white photos or repair faded color photos if you have a free account at https://www.myheritage.com/incolor

This is not an exhaustive list, but is based on my experience personally uploading thousands of Memories and as a missionary supporting Memories in FamilySearch Support in 2015-2020.