Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 1: Creating the Tree, and Basic Navigation

I've been a subscriber to FindMyPast.com for two years now, and have used the website to find records for my american and English ancestral families.

However, I had not created a Family Tree on FindMyPast.com, and I don't recall any blog posts showing the process and the tree features.  Perhaps someone has blogged about it, but I don't recall seeing it.

1)  Here is the home page (after I signed in), and I highlighted the "My family tree" tab.  I can click on an existing tree, view all trees, or create a tree:


2)  I clicked on "Create a tree" and had a choice to either "Import a tree" (upper right-hand corner) or start entering my own name, vital data, etc.:


I clicked on the button to "Import a tree":



The note on the screen says:

"Please note we cannot upload any media files referenced in your GEDCOM.  
Currently limited GEDCOMs containing a maximum of 50,000 people."

I found a recently created GEDCOM file of my ancestral families (I chose up to 15 generations back), put the file name into the "Choose file" field on the screen above, and clicked on the blue "Upload" button.  The "Family trees" screen opened:


The GEDCOM file for 15,383 persons started uploading.  After 36 minutes, the screen said the file was uploaded:


3)  I clicked on the family tree title, and the "Tree settings" window opened:


I typed my name into the "Home person" and "You" fields, and edited the name of the tree, and checked the "Public tree" box, but did not check the "Show living" box.  I did not check the "Captialized surnames" box.

When I clicked on the blue  "Save changes" button, I got an error message that my name in the "Home person" field was not acceptable (presumably because I'm living).  I picked my father instead and the changes saved.

4)  The tree opened with a rather bare-bones pedigree chart, with my father (now the home person) highlighted:



I could click on the arrow under my father (the home person above) to see the Spouse and Children, see Siblings, or Add a relative.

By clicking on a person's name, I could perform more actions.  I clicked on my grandfather's name, and a box appeared with the basic vital information for the person.  There were buttons at the bottom of the box for "Their tree," "Profile," "Edit," "Add relative," and "Search":


5)  I clicked on the "Profile" button and saw the "Overview" timeline for the person (three screens below):




As you can see, the "Timeline," "Media" and "Notes" appears on the left-hand side of the screen, and the "Things to investigate" and "Relations" (parents, spouses and children, and siblings) are in the right-hand side of the screen.

I had several other Events on the Timeline - specifically the 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 census, a draft registration event, some occupation events, an obituary, a funeral event, and a Burial event.  Those did not appear in the Timeline for some reason (perhaps there is a limit on the number of Events?).

Note that the Media did not transfer into the tree (as warned), yet there are place holders for media.  The Notes transferred seamlessly it appears.

Note also that the above screens are for the "Overview" tab - there are also tabs for  "Fact and Events," "Relations" and "Notes."

In the next post in this series, we'll look at the other tabs on the "Profile" screen.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/family-trees-on-findmypastcom-post-1.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


1 comment:

Tree Team said...

Hi Randy,

My name is Adrian and I work on the Family Tree at Findmypast.

It is great to see you blog post on our Family Tree and I really hope you enjoy using it.

We are always adding exciting new features to the Family Tree and I look forward to reading your future posts!

My favourite tree view is the Family View which can be found by clicking the drop down at the top of the pedigree view or by using the "view on tree" drop down on the Profile view.


If you want to see feedback from other users then please head over to http://feedback.findmypast.co.uk

We are currently working on attaching to Family Tree people from the search screens and being able to invite a friend via email to view your tree as well as hints.

Adrian