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.)