Frequently Asked Questions About Family Tree
Q. When will Family Tree be available?
A. Family Tree will be available this fall to everyone. If you would like to start using a preliminary version now, click here.
Q. When should I start teaching members to use Family Tree?
A. Family Tree will be available to everyone this fall. Consultants should be trained now, so that when it is released in the fall, they can then train members and others.
Q. Why was Family Tree Created?
A. For what it was intended to do, new.familysearch.org has done its job. But, based on user feedback and internal assessment, more functionality, user friendliness, and features were needed. That is exactly what drove the development of Family Tree—the desire to create a world-class family tree application as well as a user-friendly tool for clearing names for temple work. The engineers at FamilySearch have taken the best of what new.familysearch.org provided and added to it powerful tools for data accuracy, usability, and collaboration.
Q. Why Should I Use Family Tree?
A. Family Tree will eventually replace new.familysearch.org as the way for members to submit names for temple ordinances, so it’s important to become familiar with Family Tree now. The benefits of Family Tree include:
- Integration with FamilySearch.org
- Easy navigation
- The ability to connect and collaborate with others
- The ability to add, edit, and delete relationships
- The ability to discuss and show sources for vital family tree information
- A tool for receiving notifications on people and sources
- Tools to qualify and submit names for temple work
Q. How can I learn more about Family Tree?
A. A great way to learn about Family Tree is to try it! For special training on the different aspects of the new system, you can refer to the Family Tree Training site. The training website allows you to take a training course, view tutorials, access a user guide, take part in webinars, and much more.
Q. Do I need to use both Family Tree and new.familysearch.org?A. For the next few weeks, you need to use new.familysearch.org to reserve temple ordinances, but you can begin using Family Tree to do everything else, including fixing incorrect relationships and information.
When Family Tree is officially introduced in the fall, you will no longer need to use new.familysearch.org.
We anticipate that early in 2013, new.familysearch.org will no longer be available.
Q. Is FamilySearch going to allow public users to have access to Family Tree?
A. Family Tree is going to be available to everyone, whether LDS or not, beginning this fall.
Q. Will Family Tree be on www.familysearch.org?
A. Yes. Family Tree will be hosted and available as a service of www.familysearch.org. This combined tree and search experience offers many efficiencies, including the ability to attach sources you find on FamilySearch.org to individuals in your tree and to keep all your notes in one location.
Q. Will the data in nFS be in the Family Tree?
A. The information about the individuals, families, and ordinances that is currently in new.familysearch.org has been moved to Family Tree. The notes and sources that are in new.familysearch.org will be moved to Family Tree soon.
Over the next few months, new information added to Family Tree will be automatically added to new.familysearch.org and vice versa. However, new.familysearch.org cannot display all of the types of data and corrections that Family Tree can. Therefore, the information in new.familysearch.org will increasingly become outdated. For this reason, it is recommended that you focus your work on Family Tree and transition away from new.familysearch.org.
Q. What is new and different about Family Tree?
A. There are many exciting new and powerful new features:
- Users will be able to correct bad data in the tree.
- Many of the requests that people have made for changes to new.familysearch.org are being addressed in Family Tree.
- In Family Tree, the focus will be moving towards an accurate genealogical pedigree based on sources.
- The Family Tree will be a place to hold the best genealogy, available to all and preserved for future generations.
