5 Hidden Pages on the FamilySearch.org Website

There are quite a few "hidden" pages on the FamilySearch.org website. What I mean by "hidden" is that these pages are not in any of the easily discovered pull-down menus. They are also only marginally publicized by FamilySearch. Usually, after the initial blog post announcing the new page and perhaps a few pop-up notices on the main startup page, these pages go invisible to the casual user and even those who use the program almost daily, they soon fade into the background of things we once knew about but have forgotten to use.

The first of these pages is not the Timeline. However, this link on every person's detail page is usually ignored. The actual hidden page is on the Timeline page but unless you go to the Timeline page, you are not likely to ever see this "hidden" page and use it.

Yes, it is the Map page. Here is what happens when you click the slider switch to "turn on" the page.

Now you not only have a timeline you also have a map showing every place identified on the person's detail page including sources and Other Information. In addition, there is yet another level to this page. Down at the bottom of the page, there is a button to "Show Route." Clicking on that button shows you the chronological movements of your relative or ancestor. Here is a more complicated example.

You have to zoom in to see the details of all the movements.

Well, that was pretty simple. What about the next hidden page? Here is Number 2.

This pop-out page comes from clicking on the light bulb icon located in the lower right-hand corner of each page. These links can be quite specific and helpful. They are context-oriented so as you move through the pages on the website, the content changes to provide detailed instructions about the items showing on each page. You have to keep clicking on the icon as you move through the website to see what this means.

That brings us to page Number 3.

We begin by clicking on the Help link in the extreme upper right-hand corner of each page. I suppose I could consider every page in the drop-down menu to be hidden, but I am really only going to look at the last item in the list, "Helper Resources."

When you click on this link, you don't just get one more page, you get a whole part of the website that is hidden.

You could spend some time exploring the resources that are linked from this page but I am going a step further for hidden page Number 3. We start this journey by clicking on the last item on the list, "Additional Resources."

Remember, you are now two clicks down into the parts of the website that are not visible to the casual user. Now we are going to scroll down this list to the section entitled "How to Use FamilySearch." Here we find a link entitled, "FamilySearch.org Basics." Hmm.

This link doesn't take us just to another page on the website, it takes us to a whole new website.

It takes you to The Family History Guide.

Here you have hundreds of additional pages with thousands of links on a whole encyclopedia of helpful subjects. You might want to go to The Family History Guide startup page and watch the Overview Video and see what this website is all about.

thefhguide.com

This wonderful website opens a whole new world of learning about genealogy and family history.

We are now back to finding hidden page Number 4.

To get to this next hidden page, we need to go on a short trip to the very bottom of some of the pages on the FamilySearch.org website. Here we find a link called the "Solutions Gallery."

Here is the Solutions Gallery.

https://partners.familysearch.org/solutionsgallery/s/

You might argue that the page isn't really "hidden" since it is directly linked from the main startup page but it is at the bottom of the page and when was the last time you scrolled all the way to the bottom of any of the pages on the FamilySearch.org website? This is a page for you to explore on your own. You may find some very interesting apps or programs.

We have now come to hidden page Number Five.

There is a link on the FamilySearch.org startup page that says "Volunteer." The Volunteer page has a number of further links.

https://www.familysearch.org/ask/volunteer

This is another page for exploration. If you click on "Volunteer on Facebook," you will find a whole new world of FamilySearch.

I could have had ten or more hidden pages, but I will stop at five.

How can I #LightTheWorld?

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/2017/christmas/25-ways-25-days-calendar

Quoting from the Come Unto Christ website,

Each Christmas, we celebrate the life of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. By following His teachings, we let his light shine—in our lives and in the lives of others. This year, use this calendar for inspiration as you plan your Christmas activities to help #LightTheWorld by serving those in need.

Here are 25 ways in 25 days.

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/2017/christmas/25-ways-25-days

Go to the #LightTheWorld website.

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/light-the-world

#LightTheWorld Watch "The Christ Child": A Nativity Story

The Christ Child: A Nativity Story | #LightTheWorld

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great blight: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Isaiah 9:2 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no bend, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Isaiah 9:6-7

This is Family History

Here is a short video from FamilySearch that touched my heart.

This is Family History

This is also Family History:

Those of us who are working to preserve family history and submit the names of our ancestors to the temples are also family history. Lest we forget.

125 Years of FamilySearch

You may find it hard to believe but FamilySearch is really 125 years old this year 2019. The explanation for this is quite simple: FamilySearch is the trade name (and now the actual name) of the Genealogical Society of Utah that was founded back in 1894. Hence, 125 years. You can read a short summary of the history of FamilySearch on this blog post. 

https://media.familysearch.org/familysearch-celebrates-125th-anniversary/

Here is a more condensed version of the history in a timeline.

The 5 Most Common Mistakes made while working on the FamilySearch Family Tree

We all make misteakes. Oops. We all make mistakes. For genealogists, the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is an excellent example of what can happen when mistakes are abundantly made by the contributors both historical and current and I am certainly not excluding myself. For some time now, FamilySearch has provided a system of error notification using icons with red exclamation points. But there are a lot of errors that are not identified by the FamilySearch program. In this post, I have selected what I think are the five most common errors and explained why they are so common and what we all need to do to correct them.

The advantage of the Family Tree is that anyone can correct an error and hopefully do the correction without creating yet another error. My immediate family and I spend a lot of time correcting errors whether or not the errors have been identified by FamilySearch. Errors in a collaborative family tree are like weeds in a garden. Inevitable and simply part of the process of maintaining a vibrantly live family tree.

Here we go with my opinion of the five most common errors. First, some qualifications. Omissions due to lack of information are not errors. Failure to provide a standardized date or place name is not an error. It is necessary to standardize but the fact that someone has the right location or date but fails to put it in a standardized format is not an error. You cannot create a historical error by mandating a standard format or response. That issue has to do with programming and search engines, not history. Estimates are also not errors. Entering "about 1840" informs others that the exact date is unknown but is not an error.

There are other similar issues that are also not errors. So what are the errors?

1. Adding the wrong child, wife, or husband to a family.

This is error or type of error is extremely common in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. It is usually the result of focusing solely on names and dates and ignoring the locations. Granted, this error is more common in countries with a lot of similar given names and surnames, but it is particularly irksome when someone adds a child or a spouse without a source record supporting the added person. For example, people kept adding children born in England to my Tanner family in Arizona back in the early 1900s when travel would have made such an event nearly impossible and a long list of U.S. Census records did not show any children born in England.

2. Failing to check that an event location actually existed at the time of the event.

Here is a classic example of this error from the Family Tree:

Kentucky became a state in 1792. Harrison County was created in 1794. The first permanent settlement in Kentucky was constructed in 1774. The United States did not become an independent country until the Revolutionary War which began in 1775 and ended in 1783. Unless Thomas Hamilton was French or a Native American, it is totally impossible that a marriage took place when and where it is recorded. There are a number of ways to check dates for places in the United States. I suggest using the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries from the Newberry Library. This brings us to the next topic.

3. Adding or changing information to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree without a source citation.

Even if the information added to the Family Tree is correct, without a source citation there is no way a subsequent user can determine that the information is correct without redoing all of the research. In the case of the entry shown in #2 above, the lack of a source citation is understandable because the information is not real. By the way, there is no way to "estimate" the location of an event. For example, the information about the location in Kentucky in the year 1749 cannot be an estimate because the place cannot exist.

4. Making up names or putting in extraneous information for a name.

Again, the example above demonstrates this error. The wife's name, "Mrs. Thomas Hambleton" could not possibly be correct. At one point in time, people would add this space-filler type name in order to do the Temple ordinance work. But putting a Mrs in front of the entry does not really identify anyone. What if this person and more than one unknown wife? Does this wife get the name and the rest go begging?

I have also seen places in the Family Tree where the person's name is "baby" or "Mrs." or even "?" Here are some examples.

In this example, the Mrs is part of the name. By the way, my search in the Family Tree resulted in 547,016,135 entries with Mrs. as part of the name. This error comes from a previous standard accepted by FamilySearch but adding a place holder is nothing more or less than an error. Here is an entry with a question mark.



There are 11 sources listed for Christopher Sanderson and even a Find A Grave record showing a burial date but nothing connecting the Christopher Sanderson to the one born in 1575. If we just leave the entry empty, we can guess that the information is unknown. There is no need for a question mark. Another problem occurs when the title or "Junior" is used as one of the names when there is no source showing that designation as an actual part of the name. With "Junior" for example, that designation did not always mean father and son; it was sometimes used to differentiate between unrelated people who had the same name but different ages.

5.  Failing to do the math.

This is one of the most easily detected errors. Here is an example.

Look at the birth dates listed for the children. Then look at the death date of the father. Do you see a problem? If not, you are part of the problem. When I examine the sources, I have records for two different people named "John Watson" one christened in 1791 and one christened in 1785. Time for more research.

All of these errors can be avoided by careful research and thinking about what you are doing when you add information to the Family Tree. The general rule should be to leave it blank if you don't have a specific source. You can estimate dates but be careful not to estimate an out-of-range date making other dates impossible.

See how you are related to other users on the FamilySearch Family Tree

https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/view-relationship-other-users/?et_cid=1549748&et_rid=107108866&linkid=CTA1&cid=em-fsn-9418

This is an interesting feature added to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Previously, we have been able to see our relationship to the people in the Family Tree but now that extends to the contributors.

Here is a quote from the announcement from FamilySearch.

If you have ever used Relatives at Rootstech to hunt down cousins at a conference or experimented with Relatives Around Me on the Family Tree app, then you already have a pretty good idea of how the new feature works. Each of these tools allow you to directly see how you are related to someone here and now, not just your past ancestors in the tree.
The difference? The new feature doesn’t require you to be within 100 feet of another person. It gives you the option to view your relationship anywhere you spot a contributor name on the Family Tree, so long as he or she has opted in to use the new feature. 
Excited yet? Try this for yourself on FamilySearch, or read more about how it works below. 

Hmm. However, the feature requires both you and the other contributors to the website to "opt in" in order to see the relationship. I really have no trouble allowing anyone who is working on the Family Tree to see me, but I guess if I start to see someone working on one of my close family lines who "opts out" of allowing me to see how we are related, I will probably send them the new message through the website asking how they are related anyway. 

I just got my list of changes for this week and I will get busy and see how this works and if anyone will respond.