Many people who visit FamilySearch Family Tree find that their ancestors are already there. They wonder “How can I add new people if my Tree is already full?” Whether you’re asking this question for yourself or you’re helping someone else, answering it just got easier with a new tool called Research Suggestions. This new feature makes it easy to find places on the Tree where you can add new family members.
The Research Suggestions tool is currently part of the descendancy view in Family Tree. To use it, you must:
- Log in with your LDS or FamilySearch Account.
- Click Family Tree.
- In the View box in the upper left corner of the screen, click the down arrow, and then in the drop-down menu, click Descendancy.
Look at the right side of the screen to see if the Research Suggestions icon is showing. If not, you expand the tree and select another family to look elsewhere on your tree.
Research Suggestions icons will appear based on rules that are built into the tool. At present, these icons help you see where a family member or event such as a birth, marriage, or death may be missing from Family Tree.
After finding a Research Suggestions icon, click the icon to see the suggestion. Then go to the associated Person page (click the person’s name, and, on the summary card, click Person). On the right side of the details page, click Search Records. You will get a list of records to look through. Hopefully, one of the records will help you respond to the research suggestion.
In the future, you will be able to turn off a research suggestion indicator when you know the research suggestion is not valid, for example, when you know there are no more children but the research suggestion is that you look for more children.
Try to find at least two records that have consistent information before making changes on a person’s details page.
After making the changes on the details page, you can check for possible duplicates, and merge the duplicate pages as needed.
In the past, you had to browse and analyze a lot of Person pages to find a place to start your family history journey. Now you can use Research Suggestions for a good start. Here are some tips:
- You will see more family members in the descendancy view if you change the settings to turn off portraits. To turn portraits on or off, click Show at the top of the screen, and then click Portraits.
- The Research Suggestions icon is one of several indicators. Click Show in the descendancy view to see all of them and to see what they refer to.
- The easiest way to add a child or spouse from a record is by clicking Attach to Family Tree when viewing the record.
- Click the Open Details link to edit an event on a Person page.
- To edit marriage information on a Person page, click Edit Couple, and click the marriage date. Then click Edit.
Now that you know how to use Research Suggestions to find new family members, try it out by visiting Descendancy View!
