THE FAMILY TREE CERTIFIED PROGRAMS: TREESEEK, RECORDSEEK, PUZZILLA, AND ROOTSMAPPER -- SUMMARY
©2015 by Donald R. Snow. Last updated 2015-04-05.
This 2-page Summary Handout and the full notes are both posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
The numbering is as on the full notes.
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
1. Instructors are Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
) of Provo and St. George, Utah and Linda Snow Westover ( linda.westover@gmail.com
) of Orem, Utah.
2. Tips: (1) Drag icon from in from of browser address to desktop; (2) Hold down CTRL key when clicking to keep place in these notes.
3. The problem: How to use the FamilySearch Certified Programs
TreeSeek, RecordSee, Puzzilla, and RootsMapper
FAMILYSEARCH CERTIFICATION OF THIRD-PARTY PROGRAMS
4. FamilySearch -- https://familysearch.org/
-- has set up standards for programs to be Certified
6. The Certified Products page -- https://familysearch.org/products
TREESEEK
8. This is Matt Misbach's program -- http://www.treeseek.com/
.
11. Go to TreeSeek website and log in with your
FamilySearch account; retrieves your Family Tree data and generates the chart you want; can change root person by entering their PID Types of charts include regular pedigree, fan pedigree,
photo, name cloud, Source Tracker, and Vital Records sources
Charts can be saved as pdf's or TreeSeek
Company will print them for a small fee
Family History Solitaire card games
-- generates 52-card decks, suits are your 4 grandparents -- temporarily removed from TreeSeek (Apr 2015) due to bugs
12. Data is saved in an Ahnentafel
chart in the browser on your computer -- click on your name (upper right corner) -- shows some things that need correcting on FT
14. Helps for TreeSeek
RECORDSEEK
15. Website -- http://recordseek.com -- easy way to save websites and sources
18. To install it on your computer go to their website and drag the
Tree Connect bookmarklet button onto the toolbar of your Internet
browser.
19. When you find a website to save as a source --highlight any text you want to go into the comments field, click on Tree Connect bookmarklet, enter your LDS or FamilySearch account info, and save the source in your Source Box or attach it to someone in FT
22. Helps for RecordSeek
PUZZILLA DESCENDANT VIEWER
23. Website -- https://puzzilla.org/ -- helpful videos on their webpage
24. Descendants of your ancestors are your cousins
Quote from Affiliate Products page -- https://familysearch.org/products/puzzilla
-- "Looking for new relatives to take to the temple? Is your
pedigree picked over? Is there really no work left for you and
your family to do? The Puzzilla.org Descendants Viewer lets you
see hundreds of descendants of your ancestors from an
aerial view using compact symbols to reveal patterns of incomplete
research. You can pick up where prior research left off. Click on
a pedigree ancestor and Puzzilla will show you their descendants,
revealing holes where research might uncover spouses, children,
and generations of relatives waiting for you to find them."
25. Sign in on the Puzzilla website with your FamilySearch account
and it starts generating a symbolic diagram of your pedigree; hovering cursor over a dot shows who it
represents, birth and death years, PID, and three options:
View Descendants, View Ancestors. and View in Family Tree; the first two generate new charts starting from that person and
the third takes you to that person in Family Tree; further generations up or down are drawn in larger and larger circles surrounding the root person
26. Coding of the dots: square blue = males; round pink = females; yellow boxes
= person died young, so probably had no descendants; grey boxes = person was born less than 110 years ago,
so you would need permission to do temple work; other dots
represent your cousins born more than 110 years ago
27. Patterns to look for
No siblings -- the original 4-Generation Program of the LDS
Church only asked for ancestors, not families, so you may see
only one person as descendant with no siblings; if the person
had siblings, they may be in FT, but not linked, or they may not
be in FT at all yet; find their families in census and other records and, if already in FT, link them, then check and merge duplicates; if not already in FT, add and link them, then check and merge duplicates; many people found this way will need temple work done; these are your cousins and those born more than 110 years ago can be submitted without asking for permission from anyone
End of descendant line -- most people who did not die young
married and had children and these may be in FT, but not linked,
or you may have to find who they are and add and link them in FT
-- If they are not already in Family Tree, they need temple work
done for sure.
28. Clicking on the View in Family Tree button opens that person in
FT and then clicking on Search Records in the Research Help box on
the right, automatically searches censuses, vital records, and
other sources so you can find possible siblings and descendants of
the person
29. For records that seem to extend the family, carefully verify that they are the right people, enter and link them
in FT, and attach the record as the source
30. Before clearing names for temple work always check for possible
duplicates and merge any you find
31. Helps for Puzzilla are at https://puzzilla.org/training
, https://puzzilla.org/faq
, and http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2013/12/puzzillaorg-is-now-tree-access.html
ROOTSMAPPER
32. Website is -- https://rootsmapper.com
34. Log in on their website with your FamilySearch
account and it generates a 3-generation interactive Google map of
the birth locations of you, your parents, grandparents, and great
grandparents; the circle marked 0 shows where you were born, 1
where your parents were born, etc. -- it uses birth information,
not migration, so a line crossing the ocean shows immigration
since the parent was born abroad and the child here
35. To change the root person highlight the PID and enter the new
PID or else go to the end of one of the lines, click on the
circle, and click on the icon to Show This Person's Parents --
Note: in most cases you can't generate maps starting from
living persons, other than yourself, since Family Tree will not show
the birth information for them that RootsMapper needs
36. Lines on the maps are color-coded: blue for the root person's
father's lines and pink for the root person's mother's lines
37. Move the map by clicking and moving the mouse; hovering
the cursor over a circle shows the name and birth and death years;
clicking on a circle opens a card with name, PID, birth and death
information, and clicking on their name takes you to the person's
page on Family Tree
38. Clicking on circles at the ends of the lines gives person cards
with an icon to extend that line further by selecting the number
of generations you want.
39. Rolling the mouse wheel changes the size of the map; clicking
on Satellite (upper right corner) shows a satellite view, rather
than the map view; with the map view clicking on Terrain toggles the
names of the physical features on and off and with the Satellite
view clicking on Terrain toggles the terrain features on and off
40. The default is 3 generations (you and back to your great
grandparents), but can be changed for up to 10 generations, in
which case you will probably need to zoom in on the map since
there will be many circles and lines
41. The Options box in the upper left corner contains options to
toggle lines and pins on and off, Traceback to make the line black from anyone you
click on down to the root person, Isolate with Traceback drops out all other lines;
Pedigree shows root person and parents; can toggle country colors on and off,
Country Statistics shows how many born in each country
42. RootsMapper can be used for articles, demonstrations, and
slideshows for family reunions, family home evenings, classes, etc.; can use it live or else make screenshots of the maps and show
them to illustrate migration patterns
43. Besides showing migration patterns RootsMapper may help you find
problems in data; for example, the abbreviated place MA on one of
my lines plotted somewhere in Brazil and needed to have
Massachusetts spelled out to plot correctly
44. Helps for RootsMapper
CONCLUSIONS
45. Four very helpful programs for working with and editing the
data on FamilySearch Family Tree
46. See
the Certified Programs webpage -- https://familysearch.org/products/ -- for others