Monday, April 15, 2013

FamilySearch Photos Is Open

I think that FamilySearch Photos is open to everyone now - I tried it today (https://familysearch.org/photos/) and was able to access it with my FamilySearch account (I'm not an LDS church member).

After putting in my account information, I saw:


The directions on the screen say:

*  Drag and drop or click to add family photos here.
*  We support .jpg and .png up to 5 mb.

I clicked on the large green plus sign, and was able to add a number of photographs from my computer files. I stopped after uploading seven of them, and further down the page saw:



The directions (in green background) say:

*  Now that you have uploaded your photos, you can start identifying who is in the photos by tagging them.  Start by clicking on the photos below.

I clicked on the first photo above.  The photo loaded, and a "Screening in process" banner appeared across the photo:


The direction in the gray box said "Click on the photo to tag people."  I did:


I typed in the full name of the person in this photo in the blank space - my grandfather, Lyle Lawrence Carringer.  There is a circle for the face (placed by FamilySearch, but you can drag the corners to make the circle larger, or you can drag the image to center it on the face.

I clicked on the "Details" icon on the right side of the screen, and added a description to the photo:


As you can see, the photo size, photo file name, and FamilySearch user name were displayed.

I don't know how long it will take to complete the screening.  After about one hour, the screening banner is still in place.

I went back to the first screen and clicked on "My Photos" and saw:


So there are the seven photos that I uploaded.  I clicked on the first one:

I need to link the picture to a person in the FamilySearch Family Tree.  I clicked on the "Link to Family Tree" link and the popup box said "Once this person is linked to Family Tree, photos will appear on the person's details page for everyone to see."

I clicked on the blue "Search" button on the screen above, and the search page in FamilySearch Family Tree opened:


I filled in enough information for the person so that the existing profile in the Family Tree would be found:


My grandfather, Lyle Lawrence Carringer was the top match, and I clicked on the blue "Select" button on the right to add the photos to his profile.  The photos appeared again, and I clicked on the "View Family tree" ilink and opened his profile in the Family Tree:



The number of Photos is shown as two, and the first one is shown in the thumbnail view to the left of his name.  The key is to click on the blue "Select" button!

This process is fairly cumbersome - lots of clicking and verifying, but I guess that it's necessary on a website.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/04/familysearch-photos-is-open.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Devon Noel Lee said...

I have found the photo upload fairly cumbersome, but it's also exciting. My husband has seen a number of ancestor's photos posted, including some artifacts that were housed in a museum and photographed by the photo poster (is that the right word). Pretty cool feature.

Once I link a person initially to the family tree, tagging them in additional photos, including group photos is really easy. So, it gets better.

I must say this. I can't get excited about the new features of FamilySearch until they turn off the new.familysearch.org website. That site is causing so many issues for me on the FamilyTree. I can't believe this isn't stopped before the whole world is invited to use the tree and post photos. If I'm frustrated with the service and I've been playing with it for months, I can only imagine what others will think.

So... yeah for the photo gallery on FamilyTree... but I'm still waiting before I 'go crazy' posting my stash of stuff.