Thursday, May 26, 2011

New FamilySearch Family Tree - Post 10: A Better Way to Access nFS using RootsMagic 4

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Previous posts in this series can be read in the New FamilySearch Family Tree Compendium. As mentioned in earlier posts, a researcher needs to have registered for a free FamilySearch account, and be granted access to newFamilySearch (currently, only LDS church members and selected non-members, like myself), in order to access the NewFamilySearch Family Tree. FamilySearch has stated that the system might be open to everyone in late 2011.

In posts 7 and 8, I showed one way to access newFamilySearch using RootsMagic 4.  There is another way that is easier to use.  Here is how:

In RootsMagic 4, go to Tools > File Options > General tab and note the last entry on the window - "LDS Support."  There are three check boxes below that, for:

*  Show LDS status on Pedigree view
*  Show LDS status on Family view
*  Show LDS status on Descendants view.



If you check these boxes, then an LDS icon appears in the right-hand corner in each person's name field, in these three views, in your database (not just the ones that are in the newFamilySearch online tree).  Here's a Family View for Isaac Seaver (1823-1901):


The icon is a green right-arrow pointing into a temple (representing FamilySearch).  Here is the Pedigree View:


If you click on the FamilySearch icon in a Name field, the RootsMagic "FamilySearch Person Tools" window opens.  The first view is the "Ordinances" tab where a list of LDS ordinance events are listed:


If there are ordinances in the LDS church for this person, they would be displayed if the person in RootsMagic has been matched up to a person in newFamilySearch.  If the user is not an LDS church member, they can ignore this tab in the window.

From here, the user can click on the "Find Matches," "Share Data" and "Discussions" tabs to work in FamilySearch for the selected person.  Here's the "Share Data" screen for Isaac Seaver:




Having "turned on" the LDS support icons, the "Edit Person" window for each person now has another button - for "LDS Facts" which looks like this:


Turning on the LDS icon in RootsMagic 4, and just clicking it, instead of clicking on the FamilySearch button (or doing a File > FamilySearch Central), is much easier to perform.  You don't have to use the person index on one of the Views.

Of course, you have to have access to newFamilySearch in order to benefit from this LDS icon on your Pedigree, Family and Descendants views in RootsMagic 4.

UPDATE:  In Comments, RootsMagic offered:

"If instead of turning on the LDS options, you do "Tools > File options > FamilySearch tab" you can turn on FamilySearch support and you will get a FamilySearch icon next to each person's name. The icon will be gray if the RM person hasn't been matched to NFS, and blue when the person *has* been matched to NFS.

"Clicking a gray NFS icon will open the FS Person Tools to the "Find matches" page. Clicking on a blue NFS icon will open to the "Share data" page."


I missed that somehow.  Yep, that works for me!  Here's a Pedigree View that shows this:

1 comment:

RootsMagic said...

Randy,

If instead of turning on the LDS options, you do "Tools > File options > FamilySearch tab" you can turn on FamilySearch support and you will get a FamilySearch icon next to each person's name. The icon will be gray if the RM person hasn't been matched to NFS, and blue when the person *has* been matched to NFS.

Clicking a gray NFS icon will open the FS Person Tools to the "Find matches" page. Clicking on a blue NFS icon will open to the "Share data" page.