Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Getting Started With RootsFinder - Part 1: Program Menu Items

I posted RootsFinder Delivers Powerful New Tools to Genealogists for FREE on Saturday, 17 February 2018 and immediately tried to use it.  

I watched a bit of the "how to" video on the RootsFinder home page, and then clicked on the "Start Now...It's Free" button.

After logging into RootsFinder (it is FREE!), I was able to upload a family tree from FamilySearch Family Tree to RootsFinder, importing four generations of ancestors and one generation of descendants for those ancestors.  I was also able to import four more generations of ancestors for some of my ancestors.  I called this tree "Randy Seaver's FamilySearch Tree."

A user can also import a GEDCOM file, and I will do that soon so that I can compare and contrast the differences between the two import methods.  I'm not sure how many generations I'll be able to import using a GEDCOM file.

In this post, I want to highlight the different "menu" features available to use on RootsFinder.  Note that this is for my FamilySearch Family Tree, so it will include information from myself and other persons.

1)  Here is the Home Page for my account:


My Home Page includes:

*  My tree listing - I can select which tree I wish to use.

*  There is a "Demo Theater" in the middle of the page, with two sets of tabs - one set above the video screen and one below the video for each upper set of tabs.

*  There is a "News" listing on the left side.

*  There is an ad on the right side - this is the price of it bring a free online family tree.

2)  I clicked on the "Randy Seaver's FamilySearch Family Tree" on the screen above (recall that I have already imported data from Family Tree) and saw:



The tree shows four generations of my tree, with the persons name, the lifespan years, a series of gold stars, a green circle with a number in it, and a photo of the person.

I can use the "home" icon at the top left of the tree to get back to the home person (m,e!), or use the "+ or "-" buttons to zoom in and out on the tree.  I can use the arrow beside each person on the right-hand side of the tree to see up to three more generations of the selected person.

Over on the left side of the tree screen, there is a long list of menu items that control what the user sees on the screen.  I will go through many of these in the rest of this post:

3)  Here is the "Dashboard" screen:


The Dashboard shows me the most recent additions to my tree.

I can click on a person and edit the supporting evidence, or delete the person using the icons next to the person's name (not shown above).

There is a "Bookmark" opportunity on the left side of the screen above, and the user can select a name from the tree to "Bookmark."

4)  The "People" menu item provides a list of tree persons in last name - first name alphabetical order:


For each person, their birth date, death date, number of stars, number of hints, and FamilySearch ID number are provided.

There is a search box in the blue background at the top of the list.  The user can start typing the first name and then pick from the list, which seems to include some parents names also.

5)  The "Media" menu item shows all of the Media items attached to my imported ancestral families:


6)  The "Hints & ToDos" menu item includes the Hints that RootsFinder found on several different websites for me for my tree persons:


For this menu item, I can search for "Hints and ToDos" for specific tree persons.

7)  I'm skipping the "Research Logs," "DNA (experimental)," and "invitations" menu items for now.

8)  The "Content Lists" menu items has several items on it.  The first is "Evidences" which seems to be Divorce, Marriage and Source items for tree persons:


For this menu item, I can search for "Evidences" for specific tree persons.

9)  The next menu item on the "Content Lists" is "Notes," which lists all notes for my tree persons:


For this menu item, I can search for "Notes" for specific tree persons.

I clicked on one of the "Notes" and a popup window showed me the text Note:


10)  The next menu item on the "Content Lists" is for "Sources" for my tree persons.


For this menu item, I can search for "Sources" for specific tree persons.

11)  The next menu item on the "Content Lists" is for "Stories" for my tree persons.



For this menu item, I can search for "Sources" for specific tree persons.

I clicked on one of the "Sources" and saw:


I was happy to see that formatted text (with line breaks) is presented just as it is in Family Tree.

12)  There are several more menu items on the list on the left side of the screen - for "Apps," "Reports," "Hint Settings" and "Tree Settings."  I will report on those in a later blog post.

In the next blog post, I will look at what is included in a person Profile in the RootsFinder online family tree program.


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NOTE:  I have received no remuneration for writing this blog post or accessing RootsFinder.com.  I am in the process of reviewing the RootsFinder program.


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2018/02/getting-started-with-rootsfinder-part-1.html

Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

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6 comments:

tony said...

There is a new interesting News item today. For conciseness, I've deleted the text under the tool headings
==================
Announcing (experimental) DNA Tools!
21 Feb 2018

You may have noticed we have a new menu item on the left. Today, RootsFinder launched an experimental version of our DNA tool kit. With these tools, you will be able to visualize and analyze your DNA matches and tag kits to your tree. We hope you enjoy these tools. They should make it much easier to determine which DNA kits are related to which branches of your tree. Included with these tools are the following:

GEDMatch import
List view
Kit view
Segment view
Triangulation view

What’s next?
We are excited to launch these new tools. We hope that they make DNA research much easier for you! “Experimental” means that we’re still working things out, but the tools are ready to experiment with. We are planning additional functionality at the end of March, and we welcome your comments and suggestions!

Steven C Perkins said...

It seems the DNA tools program has already closed and is no longer accepting sign-ups and it appears that you can no longer sign up for the family tree, RootsFinder, part of their service.

Steven C Perkins said...

Third time was the charm to get into the RootsFinder program. Ignore that part of my prior post.

Randy Seaver said...

Steven - I'm glad you got into the family tree part of the program.

The DNA tools was an announcement. I don't think it's active yet. I can't access it either.

Steven C Perkins said...

Randy:

After I input my tree I found a link to "DNA (experimental)" in the list on the left side of the page just under "Research Logs". When I clicked that, I found the page for the DNA tools. Adding my Gedmatch files now.


Randy Seaver said...

Hi Steven, I finally figured out how to use the DNA tools. got my Matches uploaded, but need the GEDMatch Tier 1 tool to go further.

Thanks for commenting again - it spurred me to look at it again.