1

New Family Search Notes and Advice

REPEAT: VISIT THE PILOT SITE FOR INDEXED RECORDS AND TEMPLEWORK UPDATES

Have you visited yet? You really should.

There are some very dynamic items there for you to use while doing your family history. The first one is the RECORDS SEARCH. Here you can see what items located in the Granite Vault have been digitized and indexed. There are many census records and many other valuable records. It’s FREE.

The second one is FAMILY TREE.

You will have to use your sign-in information from NFS to enter. Then you will find a pedigree of any information your family has on NFS. But then if you press the TEMPLETAB, you will find a record of any temple work you have submitted with up-to-date information about the status of your temple work. Yes, there is also one at NFS, but frankly, we like this one better. Each ordinance is color-coded to show the temple work progress. You can also print it out to keep a record of your temple work.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT FAMILYSEARCH SITES

FamilySearch offers millions of indexed records and images for no charge directly through Record Search. Additionally, in order to increase public access to massive genealogy collections worldwide, FamilySearch provides

free services to archives and other record custodians who wish to digitize, index, publish, and preserve their collections.

When record collections are made public through these partnerships, you'll be able to search their indexes for free on FamilySearch ( Note: This is the same site as “Labs.” The record custodians may require a fee for access to the original images, depending on the needs of the archive. However, access to any of these images that require a fee will be available in the future for free through any family history center worldwide to LDSChurch members and to qualified FamilySearch indexers (a volunteer who indexes 900 names in a 90-day period will have 90 days of free image access).

FamilySearch is testing a system that will allow these images to be free to those specific groups. It will be implemented in 2009.

Kathy

Portland, OR

PROBLEM SOLVED: IS THERE A WAY TO RELEASE ORDINANCES THAT YOU HAVE SAID YOU WILL DO YOURSELF AFTER YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND?

If you have said that you will do temple work but then change your mind, if you have not printed a Family Ordinance Request (FOR), on the NFS home page, click Temple Ordinances, next click Make Names Available for Others to Do, at the point that the drop-down menu says “Me,” you can click the drop-down list and select the Temple option. “Once a name hasbeen released to the temple, it sits in the “Ready” state. At this point, another Family Search user can pick up the names, or the temple will give them to temple patrons who do not bring their own family names.” If you have finished changing from Me to Temple, click Done. If you are not finished, click Next Family and repeat the steps until you have released all the names you want to the temple.

But if you have already printed a FOR, the ordinances cannot be released to others to do, and you are responsible to see that they are completed. You can either enlist the help of others, or you can turn the cards into the temple to do, but you cannot release the ordinances to another user of the program.

Information from new FamilySearch site - Help

UNEASY FEELINGS WHEN

RESERVING TEMPLEWORK

In the new FamilySearch, when you initiate temple work, do you get an uneasy feeling that nothing has happened? From the HelpCenter, this message should allay your concerns:

“The TempleOrdinance page appears when you finish making the ordinances available for others to do. Although no message appears to confirm that the ordinance is now in the temple queue, you can rest assured that this is the case. When a temple or a patron picks up the ordinance, its status will change from “Ready” to “Reserve’ or “In progress.” There are actually two “Ready” states: (1) “Ready for temple or patron” which occurs after an ordinance is released to the temple from your reserved list. That means that you have initiated the temple work. It is actually in the temple queue and will soon be picked up by a temple, but until then, it will also be available for any other patron to reserve. (2) The other “Ready” appears in the nFS “LDS Ordinances” screen when the ordinance has never been reserved by a patron, and no temple will pick it up until a patron assigns it. In plain terms, it means that the person seemingly meets the qualifications for a patron to do his temple work.

NEW FAMILY SEARCH DUPLICATES

When you are working in new FamilySearch, the first thing you need to do is to combine duplicates. When you open a second record, even though information is not the same or even not correct, if you can determine the second record is your ancestor, it needs to be combined and put into one file. You next go to the Summary (to the arrows at the end of the entry) to change to the best selection if more than one appears, or type in a more correct entry (name, date, location).

If you are checking for temple work with a large family and it seems that work has been completed for most of the children, there is a strong chance that the work has been done for the few left out. You need to be creative in trying to find duplicates, first with the duplicate search and then with the advanced duplicate search. If the person’s temple work does not show as done, then go to the Spouse-children screen and check for duplicates. First, click on the wife’s name and look under her name at Other. If her husband’s name or “unknown” appears there, you can use the ball-arrow in front of his name above to resolve duplicate spouses. Next make the husband’s name bold, and look under the word Other at the bottom. If the wife’s name or unknown appears, use the ball-arrow in front of the wife’s name to resolve duplicate husbands. Next check each child individually for duplicates. If there are duplicate children, the parents’ work may show up as done through combining records for the children. Keep looking at the Other category with each child as duplicate parents may again show up. I know that this seems like a lot of checking, but it is suspicious that all but a few members of a family have temple work completed except one or two (unless they died much later than everyone else). Perform a thorough check for duplicates before you set them up for temple work. Sylvia Sonneborn

***************************************

CHURCH EXTRACTION PROGRAM

More volunteers are still needed for the indexing of census and other records at

From that site, the question is posed, “Why is indexing important?” “Volunteers extract family history information from digital images of historical documents to create searchable indexes that assist everyone in finding their ancestors.”

Elder Drasher of the Gettysburg Ward has been called to serve a family history mission, and he tells us, “I am on an area support mission with the family history department in SaltLake. I answer phone calls and e-mails from my home near Gettysburg. I am assigned to indexing and record search. As I speak to patrons and members, I see the good that indexing does in their lives, including youth and older people.” He also sent along this information for the newsletter.

Number of indexers= 163,000

Names indexed in 2008= 115,000,000

Names in Record Search= 435 million.

Goal for 2009= 650 billionEnglish -speaking

missionaries in world-wide support

Indexing support in 2008 received:

22,536 phone calls

15,567 emails

Record Search in 2008 received:

829 phone calls

15,424 emails

JUST IMAGINE HOW MUCH INDEXING THE ARMY OF GOD COULD DO……….

One stake has indexed or arbitrated over 4 million records in 2008. I just learned of it on another list from the stake extraction director.
Considering that there are just over 1300 stakes in the US and Canada where FamilySearch Indexing is most widely done right now, along with a few other areas and some nonmember participation, and the fact that the total indexing
volume for 2008 is going to be just over 100 million records (there was a note in late October about that posted to the website), then this is a huge number for just one stake.

And it also shows what is possible. Maybe not every stake can do four million, but even a million or two records from each participating stakecould end up making a huge difference. Even if there were just one million per stake, that could be as many as 1.3 billion more records in the Record Search site, and let’s just suppose that all stakes were able to rack up the four millionnumber that was reported here; that could be as many as 5.2 billion records indexed in just one year, not counting what the world at large could do, both from LDS members outside the US/Canada areas but the nonmember community as well.

Of course a 'record,’ in this case, is one entry, that is a name plus its associated data.

Just imagine!

James W. Anderson, Family History Consultant

INSPIRATION FROM GENERAL AUTHORITIES

“Elijah came not only to stimulate research for ancestors. He also enabled families to be eternally linked beyond the bounds of mortality. Indeed, the opportunity for families to be sealed forever is the real reason for our research.”

Elder Russell M. Nelson

INFORMATION ABOUT THE STAKE EXTRACTION DIRECTOR

Recently, I have been reading about the calling of Stake Extraction Director. I read the August 2007 Ensignarticle called “Family Search Indexing” and learned a little about the benefits of the calling. I posted an inquiry on the FH Consultant site about the calling and received some valuable information from two other individuals on the site. First, John Vilburn of Hawaii and also the president of Ohana Software/FamilyInsight gave me directions to find the church’s definition:

  • Go to
  • Click on “Serving in the Church” heading
  • “Family History”
  • “Priesthood Leadership of Family History”
  • Last, click on “Administrative Guide for Family History”

John commented that the document is worth printing.

One can also find out more information about the Stake Extraction Director by continuing at that site:

  • Click on “Family Search Indexing and Family Record Extraction”
  • Click on “Family Record Extraction Administrative Handbook” and one can find the details about the Stake Extraction Director.

In addition to John’s helpful information, I received an e-mail from a live Stake Extraction Director name Shanna Jones from St. George, Utah. Shanna added some hands-on data that is most informative.

“I am a Stake Extraction Director in St. George, Utah. I was called as a Stake Extraction Director just to oversee the Family Search Indexing and get it going in our stake when we were a brand new stake, about three years ago.

Some things I have done are to volunteer to go speak in each of the nine wards ineither Sacrament Meeting, the priesthood committee meetings, Relief Society Enrichment nights, YM/YW activities or fifth Sunday presentations. I have been doing that for the past three years off and on as they need me. Last Sunday I taught two High Priest Quorum lessons in two different wards. I currently have about 325 indexers signed up and about 85 that index all the time. I send out quarterly emails to all of them, recognizing the top ten indexers and top ten arbitrators in the stake and give some words of encouragement. I also tell them how many names we have indexed/arbitrated so far during the year and try to keep them motivated.

I had to assign a family history consultant in each ward to help me train and keep track of the indexers because there are so many of them. I am also the stake family history trainer (kind of a replacement for the stake family history consultant calling), so I train the consultants as well and help the High Councilor over family history train the priesthood leaders.

People have told you where to look on LDS.org under serving in the church. Whoever is called to be the director will need to register with Church Headquarters so they can put them in as an administrator. Then they will have access to all of the reports. They can be emailed or printed out in PDF format.

The administrator is to answer questions and help people out who are new to indexing. They can also assign them to become arbitrators once they are more experienced at indexing. Each stake should arbitrate about 50% as many names as they index to keep things flowing. I usually try the different batches to become familiar with them so I can answer questions. The tutorials are reallygood, I recommend new users go through those. Some administrators have members index a batch, and then before they submit the batch, they call the administrator and let her check it out so that she can do any coaching and pick up on any perpetual errors. The administrator can log in with the indexers username and password. The administrator can also reset the passwords and give users forgotten usernames.”

Thanks to John and Shanna for their useful info.

Communications for Family History Consultants from Family Search Support

Family History Library Catalog Training Now Available

The Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) is a key resource for family history research. The FHLC is a Web site that provides access to the Family History Library’s collectionof millions of records that identify events in the lives of ancestors. The types of records that may be found in the catalog include:

  • Church registers of christenings, marriages, and burials
  • Birth, marriage, and death records
  • Censuses
  • Military records
  • Wills and probates
  • Land and property records
  • Court documents
  • Guild records
  • Family histories

Training on how to use the FHLC is now available on FamilySearch.org. To access the training, you can click this link or do the following:

  • Go to
  • Place your cursor over the Library tab.
  • Click Library Catalog.
  • A new page will appear. The three new online lessons will be listed near the bottom of the page. The three lessons include:
    Lesson 1: Family History Library Catalog Navigation
    Lesson 2: How to Use the Catalog
    Lesson 3: Tips for Using the Catalog

Family Search Support

.

Training Videos for Family History Leaders

Training videos for priesthood leaders who oversee family history work and members with family history callings are available for download in English and Spanish on the Church’s Web site, The video segments are adapted from a Church satellite broadcast that originally was presented on May 4, 2000. These videos will instruct priesthood and family history leaders on how they can help members do family history work and fulfill their temple and family history responsibilities. The segments feature:

  • Instruction and testimony from President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.
  • Discussion with priesthood and family history leaders.

The video segments include the following topics:

  • Helping Members Fulfill Temple and Family History Responsibilities
  • Priesthood Leaders
  • Member Involvement
  • Family History Consultant
  • FamilyHistoryCenter Staff
  • A Testimony of Temple and Family History Service

You will need the Windows Media Player to view the videos. To download the player, click here.

To access these training videos, do the following:

  • Log in to
  • Select Serving in the Church.
  • Select Family History.
  • In the menu on the left side of the screen, select Training Videos for Family History Leaders.
  • From the contents list, select the video you wish to view.
  • To see the contents list in Spanish and access the Spanish-language video segments, select Español (Segmentos de video de capacitación para líderes de historia familiar).

Information on FamilySearch Certified Software Affiliates

One of the Family History Department’s responsibilities in assisting family history consultants is to keep consultants informed about products and services that are available to help members with their family history work. In doing this, the department does not solicit or encourage consultants or members to purchase products or services. The department does not promote one product or service over another.