| Using
the FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service
Jim
Byram looks at the LDS Church FamilySearch website.
 |
The
FamilySearch home page showing the default all-inclusive
Ancestor Search which searches Ancestral File (AF),
the International Genealogical Index (IGI) and websites. |
Beginning
with the release of Ancestral File in 1989, the LDS Family
History Department began to make their wealth of family history
resources available to genealogy researchers in a collection
of genealogical databases, indexes and catalogs collectively
referred to as FamilySearch. FamilySearch was first distributed
on microfiche and later on both microfiche and CD-ROM. To
use FamilySearch, it has traditionally been necessary to travel
to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, to any of
the LDS Family History Centers or to a genealogy library that
had a copy. This spring the FamilySearch collection has moved
to the Internet with the opening of the FamilySearch Internet
Genealogy Service (www.familysearch.org).
Some
FamilySearch Background
Ancestral File is a lineage-linked database. Version 4.19
on the website contains more than 35 million names organized
into families and pedigrees. The linkage of an individual
to his or her ancestors and/or descendants may be followed.
The International Genealogical Index is a much larger database
of deceased individuals and their vital records extracted
from a wide variety of sources. Version 4.01 on the website
contains records of more than 360 million individuals. There
are the expected duplications, overlaps and errors in the
above databases. The Family History Library Catalog with more
than two million microfilms and hundreds of thousands of books
and maps was also available but in beta test when this article
was written.
The
FamilySearch Website
FamilySearch opens to a Search for Ancestors page. To the
left are a column of navigation buttons including What’s
New, Search for Ancestors, Browse Categories (glossary, various
information, websites), Collaborate with Others, Preserve
Your Genealogy, Add a Site, Order Family History Resources,
About The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Feedback
and Help. The FamilySearch home page has tabs for Ancestor
Search, Keyword Search and Custom Search defaulting to Ancestor
Search.
Ancestor
Search
The Ancestor Search ‘all searches’ tab searches
Ancestral File (AF), the International Genealogical Index
(IGI) (British Isles, Finland and North America regions) and
websites (found by last name only). You can do a last name
only search; however, when I searched for the last name ‘Byram,’
the resulting list was sorted by first name and contained
only the first 76 name matches plus three web page matches
with no apparent way to retrieve the remainder of the list.
If you enter first and last names, you apparently retrieve
a complete list. Adding parent and spouse names can narrow
the search. Note that surnames are grouped so the search is
a ‘fuzzy search’ and can produce results even
when your spelling may not be exact.
The search results list contains the names as recorded giving
the source type (AF, IGI/Region or website), the person’s
gender and their birth date and place. My search for Nicholas
Byram with his parents’ names resulted in 30 matches
— 14 names (all from the IGI) and 16 websites. When
you click on a match, you go to the appropriate page (AF Individual
Record, IGI Record or website).
Keyword
Search
The FamilySearch Keyword Search tab allows a keyword search
of the SourceGuide and for websites. The SourceGuide contains
research outlines, a genealogical glossary and a catalog helper.
The research guide for Massachusetts, for example, is an extensive
list of genealogical resources and repositories in the state.
Custom
Search
The FamilySearch Custom Search tab has links for searches
of Ancestral File, the International Genealogical Index and
the Family History Library Catalog, a locator for Family History
Centers, and searches of the SourceGuide, websites and the
collaboration lists. The search pages for AF and IGI accessed
from the Custom Search tab are more detailed than the FamilySearch
Ancestor Search on the home page.
International
Genealogical Index Custom Search
The IGI Custom Search page has additional fields that may
be used to narrow your search including event type (birth,
christening, marriage, death, burial), the IGI region (British
Isles, Finland, North America), batch number, serial/sheet
number and film number. Additional IGI regions will be added.
When you search from this page, you must select an IGI region
since the default is none.
When I searched for the last name ‘Byram’ only,
the resulting list was sorted by first name and contained
only the first 200 matches with no apparent way to retrieve
the remainder of the list. An older ‘what’s new’
page said a last name only search required entering a batch
number or film number.
From the IGI Custom Search page, you can enter a name and
search for a specific event and year. Note that an event is
always selected but this feature is inactive until a year
is added.
If you enter only the first and last names of the parents,
you can find all of their children. I entered Nicholas Byram
and Susanna Shaw and retrieved a list of 77 matches. From
working on this family from the available original records,
I know that there were only six recorded children. The list
of 77 contained different records for the same persons and
an erroneous child or two.
The end result of an IGI search is the IGI Record for one
person, which includes the name, gender, event(s), parents
and source information. Now what can you do with that record?
You can print it or you can save the web page. You could also
copy and paste the record to a document. Any of these choices
is laborious if your searches produce a large number of returns.
Colin Hinson has written a pair of programs to make this process
easier if you are running Internet Explorer 4 or 5. First,
it is a good idea to clear your browser cache. You then log
on to the FamilySearch website and carry out your IGI searches.
Each time that you display an IGI Record, the web page will
end up in your browser cache. When done, you exit FamilySearch
and go offline. You then run the first of Colin’s programs
LDSDecache.exe. This program will copy all IGI records from
the browser cache to a specific folder on your C: drive. If
you are not running IE4 or 5, you can save the web pages manually
and copy them to the appropriate folder. The second program,
DeHTML102.exe will extract the data from the IGI Records and
create a pair of text (.TXT) files on your Desktop containing
the data. One of these files is for error checking and the
second is a tab-delimited file containing your data that can
be opened in a word processor or spreadsheet for further manipulation.
At the time this article was written, these programs were
still in development but worked as described. They are available
on Colin Hinson’s website (www.blunham.demon.co.uk/
Yorksgen/ software/).
Ancestral
File Custom Search
Ancestral File can be searched with a first and last name
and the search can be narrowed with parent and spouse names.
You may also use any combination of the following: birth year,
christening year, marriage year, death year, or Ancestral
File number (AFN). The result of an AF search is a list of
matching names and clicking on any one of these links brings
up an Individual Record. The AF individual record has the
person’s name, gender, events, parents, marriage(s)
and submitter(s). The names of each parent and spouse are
links to their individual records. To the right of the screen
is a column of buttons — pedigree and family buttons
for the subject, family buttons for each parent and spouse,
and a details button for submitter(s).
The Pedigree button leads to a four-generation pedigree chart
with the subject as focus. Each set of parents shown on the
pedigree chart has a family button. Arrows to the right of
persons on the right side of the chart lead to more pages
of the pedigree chart with additional generations of ancestors.
The Family buttons lead to Family Group Records for the subjects
with the buttons. The family group records show the names,
events and parents of the husband and wife and the name, gender
and events for each child. The names of each parent and child
are links leading to the individual record of that person.
To the right, the husband and wife have pedigree and family
buttons and each child has a pedigree button.
The Ancestral File Number (AFN) is shown for each person shown
on the Individual Record and Family Group Record. Through
the combination of the three screens (individual, family,
pedigree), you can navigate through a person’s lineage.
The details button next to submitter(s) on the individual
record screen brings up a list of those persons who contributed
to this lineage with enough information to contact that person
and may include an e-mail address.
You will need to print the AF individual record, family group
record or pedigree charts or save the web pages for later
use. At present, there is no provision to retrieve the lineage
data in the form of a GEDCOM and no means to extract the data
from the saved web pages.
Website
Options Requiring Registration
There are three FamilySearch options which require simple
registration — using the 51,000 collaboration lists,
submitting a GEDCOM of your research for inclusion in Ancestral
File, and adding a website to the FamilySearch Internet search
list.
The collaboration lists are mail lists and are generally based
on family names or the names of individuals. You can even
add your own collaboration list.
The Preserve Your Genealogy option leads you through the steps
and requirements for submitting your GEDCOM to the Family
History Department of the LDS Church.
Order
Family History Resources
This option allows you to order the Family History Department
software and data CD-ROMs and to download software updates;
however, there is a hidden treat here. The genealogy program,
Personal Ancestral File 4.0 for Windows, can be downloaded
for free. PAF 4.0 is a specially modified version of Ancestral
Quest version 3.0 and is a competent program, but limited
compared to software currently on the market.
The FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service is a remarkable
website and is a valuable starting point for anyone’s
research. This is particularly true because of availability
of the data sources and submitters, the research support in
the SourceGuide and the Family History Library Catalog. The
content and features of the website are developing and it’s
worthwhile to frequently click on the What’s New button
for details and hints. You should expect to see periodic updates
of the Ancestral File and International Genealogical Index.
There are some minor navigation problems. Whenever I clicked
on Ancestral File pedigree buttons, the transition to the
target web page failed about half the time and, occasionally,
family buttons failed in a like manner. Simply click on your
browser’s back button and try again. These minor problems
could result from the need for minor tuning of the website
or from the traffic load. Early on, FamilySearch had an incredible
usage rate and for a period, user connections were limited
to 15 minutes. The time limit has been removed and the website
seems to handle the traffic well. If the site seems slow or
unresponsive, simply exit and try at another time.
In the future, we’ll probably look back and see the
creation of FamilySearch as a milestone in the availability
of genealogical resources on the web. Who can envision what
will follow next?
This
article originally appeared in the September/October 1999
issue of Family Chronicle.
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