Monday, November 19, 2018

Looking Again at the Findmypast Global Tree

One of the announcements made at RootsTech 2018 last March was that Findmypast would partner with FamilySearch to provide a new shared tree based on the FamilySearch Family Tree, which has over 1 billion person profiles.   I did a first look at this "global tree" in 

Checking Out Findmypast's New Global Tree, posted 6 March 2018.


In that post, I hoped that Findmypast would be able to include:

*  Links to Children in the "List view."
*  Source citations
*  Notes
*  Life sketch
*  Discussions
*  Memories (stories and photos)

In this post, I'm going to revisit this global tree and see how much has changed since March.  I will use a different ancestor to work with than last time - I chose my 2nd great-grandfather, James Richman (1821-1912).  

1)  After logging into the Findmypast home page, I clicked on the "Try Our New Family Tree (beta)" link in the "Quick Links" section (you have to scroll down to see it).  I saw a search box, so I added the name, birth year and birth location to the search fields:


2)  After clicking the blue "Search" button, there were two results:


The first one was the right person, so I clicked on the name and saw a family tree (in a family view, not a pedigree view):


3)  I clicked on the "Profile" link on the left of the screen, and a popup window appeared on the left side of the screen, which provided the basic information about the profile:


For some reason the Alternate name ("James Richmond") appeared at the top of the screen.

Other links on the left side of the screen above are to "Search," to "Share this tree" and to "Save this tree."

On the popup screen, there are links for "View tree," "Full profile" and "View history."

4)  I clicked on the "Full profile" link and saw the person profile's information - vital information, life sketch, other information, family members, sources, and notes (six screens below, not contiguous):







Every family member (person with spouse(s) and children, person with parents and siblings) can be clicked on to go to their profile.  

Every source and note can be clicked on to see their content (I clicked on one of the Notes on the last screen above.

At the top of this page, there are links for "View tree," "Watch," and "View my relationship" on the left, and "Profile," "Memories" and "History" on the right side of the screen.  "Watch," "View my relationship," and "Memories" don't work at this time.  

On the right side of the page, there are areas for "Latest Changes" and "Tools."  The tools available are "Possible Duplicates" and "Merge by ID."  They both work.

6)  So some of my "hoped for" changes have been added - specifically the links to Children, Sources, notes and Life Sketch.  

I noted that the layout of the person profile has changed considerably - the current profiles have a lot of white space with two columns, whereas the early profile used three columns.  More scrolling is required, but the current layout is similar to the former layout of the FamilySearch Family Tree.
7)  My next questions for Findmypast about this global tree are:

*  Can I add a new profile, or a new spouse, child, parent or sibling, from within this tree, and will it appear on the FamilySearch Family Tree?  If not, will that feature be added to the Findmypast tree?

*  Can I edit the vital information, other information, life sketch, sources, notes on a profile and have it appear on the FamilySearch Family Tree?   If not, will that feature be added to the Findmypast tree?

*  Are all profiles currently in the FamilySearch Family Tree included in the Findmypast global tree?  If so, how often is the Findmypast tree updated?  If not, when will the Findmypast tree be updated again?

I hope that Findmypast will provide a response to these questions.  I will pass them on if and when I receive them.

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Disclosure:  I have a complimentary subscription to Findmypast, and have accepted meals and services from Findmypast, as a Findmypast Ambassador.  This has not affected my objectivity relative to Findmypast and its products.


Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

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1 comment:

Bill said...

Randy-

I tried it as well with all 4 grandparents. Each of their ancestors were correctly there going back to the 1700's and some earlier. Full disclosure, I have put my direct ancestors and more in on FamilySearch as well as on Find My Past. So no surprise that the info matches mine.

Interesting that all my hard work for the past three years is now out there for anyone interested to find for free! I see that as a good thing...

Bill Greggs