I had to interrupt my regularly scheduled post to share a cool new feature on Family Tree – Descendancy View.
This view allows you to choose an ancestor and see their descendants. You just work your way down and open descendants to see their descendants and so on. This excellent tool is a great way to identify areas of incomplete research. You can select one ancestor and slowly work your way down to see if they are missing descendants. Cool, right?
Knowing the FamilySearch people that I do, I have a feeling this tool is going to have more awesome features added in the future.
Yes, no curvy swervy lines! Those were pretty but difficult to read. Thanks for the heads up.
I agree! Very pretty but this format is a lot more user friendly.
I know lots of people love and use Family Search and I should, too. But I got so frustrated a few years back when I uploaded my family tree info and then when I would go back to my own tree, other people would have changed my entries. I just couldn’t deal with that.
Yes, it is frustrating to have your work changed. I have found with the new Family Tree it is a lot more user friendly and there are fewer problems with changes. It is easier to source and tag your work. People will generally leave something alone if you have good sources. My sister often changes things to match my grandma’s notes and then I have to change it back and attach the source. 🙂 Once I have the source on there she leaves it alone. I have really enjoyed working in the FamilySearch tree because I have come across cousins I hadn’t met that have good photos or stories I didn’t. It’s also nice to collaborate on tricky research areas. But like you, I don’t love it when my work is changed so I also have a private ancestry tree. If you decide to try it out again sometime you’ll have to let me know if you like the new changes.
Wait, other people can change your entries?!
Yes. In Family Tree on FamilySearch other people can change information. Sounds stressful right? The goal of that particular tree is to create one tree for all of mankind with only one instance of each person.
So if you and I have a common 4th great grandparent the idea is that we each have the exact same person in each of our trees, not two separate versions of the same person. This way we are put in a position to collaborate. It took a while for me to come around to seeing the positives in this idea. It takes patience for sure.
If someone incorrectly changes something you have put in the tree, you can very quickly change it back in the change history by clicking restore. The exceptions for this are if a person is merged or deleted. That isn’t as simple to change back. If someone makes a really big mess you can contact FamilySearch and they will go back through the history and restore things for you.
It sounds scary and frustrating and of course it can be, but the cool experiences I have had because of the collaboration far outnumber any frustrations.
But I will say, I keep a private tree on ancestry as well so that I can compare any big changes that confuse me. I have only needed to compare a few times. Most of the time the changes other people make are good or based on old family records and they mean well.
Do you use Family Tree?