RootsTech and Relatives at RootsTech - FAQ

Where to Find Relatives at RootsTech:

Relatives at RootsTech is available on the website at: https://www.familysearch.org/connect

Relatives at RootsTech is available on the mobile Family Tree apps, both iOS and Android. Make sure you are running the most current version of the app, and then in the blue banner at the top, click Find Relatives at RootsTech.

Additional Help:

• A general RootsTech FAQ can be found here.
• Additional Frequently Asked Questions on Relatives at RootsTech can be found here, including a video demonstrating how it works.
• For tips on how to get Relatives at RootsTech working in the FamilySearch Family Tree app, see the article: Relatives at RootsTech is not working
• FamilySearch Blog article: Relatives at RootsTech 2024: Find Out Who You're Related To!

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is the difference between registering for RootsTech and joining Relatives at RootsTech?
Relatives at RootsTech is an optional activity that happens around the time of the RootsTech conference. Attendees can sign up for RootsTech and access some of the classes and sessions without choosing to join Relatives at RootsTech. Attendees who join Relatives at RootsTech can see how they are related to other conference attendees and send a text message to relatives, if desired.

If I register for RootsTech, will I also be added to Relatives at RootsTech?
No. You will not automatically join Relatives at RootsTech upon registering for RootsTech. You must join Relatives at RootsTech separately by going here: https://www.familysearch.org/en/connect/

What is Relatives at RootsTech?
Relatives at RootsTech is an online experience that shows if (and how) you are related to other FamilySearch users. To participate:

1. Register for Relatives at RootsTech by going here: https://www.familysearch.org/connect.
2. Update your FamilySearch profile information to join the event, and make sure you agree to share basic information in order to view your connections with other FamilySearch guests.
3. Make sure your family is in the FamilySearch Family Tree. If you are brand new, try this: Guided Tree. For help adding a few individuals to Family Tree click here. To add many individuals from another database, click: Learn more. You can also find additional help by going to these Frequently Asked Questions.
4. Visit the Relatives at RootsTech page (www.familysearch.org/connect) or the FamilySearch Family Tree mobile app to see any relatives and how you are related.
   

Is my information safe?
Your information will be protected and won’t be sold to a 3rd party. It will be kept safe and protected. Only information that you have agreed to share will be visible to other participants of Relatives at RootsTech. Please refer to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for additional details.

When you join Relatives at RootsTech, we ask for your name and home country. You can optionally provide a state (where applicable) and a profile photo. This information is visible to other RootsTech attendees in order to improve communication and, with your permission, to show family relationships.

You can control what information others can see in your RootsTech Profile.

Can I opt out of Relatives at RootsTech? Can I update my profile?
Yes. You can opt out of Relatives at RootsTech, update your profile or add a photo in your User Settings. There are opt out and update links at the bottom of the Relatives at RootsTech main page (https://www.familysearch.org/connect/) or in the FamilySearch Family Tree mobile app.

What if it says I am not related to any other RootsTech attendees?
We use your family information from FamilySearch Family Tree to identify family relationships. There are a few reasons why you may not be getting many results.

1. Need to join Relatives at RootsTech: If you haven’t yet joined Relatives at RootsTech, we won’t be able to show you your relatives.
2. No tree: If you haven’t added your family into the tree yet, we won’t be able to find any relatives. For help adding a few individuals to Family Tree click here. To add many individuals from another database, click here: Learn more.
3. Need more information: It’s possible you need to add more generations. See if you can take one of your family lines (the ancestors of one of your parents) back a few more generations. For help adding a few individuals to Family Tree, click here. To add many individuals from another database, click here: Learn more.
4. Not enough trees: There may not be enough family trees submitted yet from your particular part of the world.

What do these other numbers on the page mean?
In addition to showing you how many relatives we have found for you, we show you some other personalized facts based on the information you provide:

1. Total Number of Relatives Found: This number is found at the top of the page and shows the total number of relatives that have joined Relatives at RootsTech.
2. List of Closest Relatives: At the top of the page, when you click View Relatives, you can see your top existing relatives who have also joined Relatives at RootsTech. This is the main feature of Relatives at RootsTech. In the top list, you can view your relationship with your relatives, send messages, and add them to your Contacts List.
3. Same Surname: The feature also shows how many “cousins” have signed up for the conference. This represents the number of RootsTech attendees who share your same surname. Not all will be literal cousins, though they share the same name. You can search for other last names by clicking the Check Another Last Name button.
4. Total Number of Participants: Near the bottom of the page, this number shows the total number of attendees participating in Relatives at RootsTech worldwide.

What if the information shown is wrong?
We use the relationship information found in the global Family Tree on FamilySearch to calculate relationships. If the information is incorrect there, you will see inaccuracies in Relatives at RootsTech. You can go to www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/ to update inaccurate family tree information.

I fixed my tree information. How long before I start seeing relationships?
It can take up to an hour to re-calculate relationships after a user updates person or relationship information in the global Family Tree on FamilySearch.

How can I message relatives or friends?

• Chat in Relatives at RootsTech: While viewing the list of your relatives, click the name of the relative and select the Chat option. To type in a message, click in the Message box. Click Send Message.
  
• RootsTech Chat: You can message another guest during the RootsTech conference using the direct chat feature on the RootsTech website. At the top right of the RootsTech website, click the Chat icon. This will open a chat pop-up window on the screen. You can type in the name of other users in the search box if they have set permissions to be in the directory, and send a private chat during the RootsTech conference. These messages will appear in your Private Chats section and will remain in your FamilySearch Chats after RootsTech has ended. You can also find chat groups specific to RootsTech by using the toggle next to "Show event chats." Here you will find Session Chats, RootsTech group chats, conversations with RootsTech staff through the Ask Us Anything Chat option, groups created by attendees, and chats with Expo Hall vendors. You will continue to have access to these chats specific to RootsTech after the conference ends, but some chats may be disabled and chats will no longer be monitored or responded to by RootsTech staff.
  
• FamilySearch Chat: 
  
  • Website: Sign in to your FamilySearch.org account on the website. In the top right corner, click the overlapping speech bubbles (that display "Chat"), to contact others at any time. You will see the same experience as with RootsTech Chat, and any messages sent to individuals will be in the Private Chat section.
  • App: Open the mobile Family Tree app on your device, and go to the More section. Here you will find the FamilySearch Chat and will see the same messages you see online if you have allowed notifications from the Family Tree app to pop-up on your device. These notifications will also include chat messages that are sent to you. These messages will remain in the list of chats in FamilySearch Chat after RootsTech has ended.
    Note: You may want to add your relatives to your contacts list to maintain connections after RootsTech has ended.
    

How do I add a relative to my Contacts list on FamilySearch?
To add a relative to your contacts list, do the following:

Step 1: On the View Relatives page, click on the name of the relative to be added to your contacts list.

Step 2: A submenu will appear under the name of your relative. This submenu will include these options: Message, Relationship, and Contact.

Step 3: To add your relative to your contacts list on FamilySearch, click the + Contact button. You will see a notification in the upper right portion of your screen that says "This person was added to your contacts list".

Step 4: To view your contacts list, click on your name at the top right of the FamilySearch screen, and from the drop-down menu, click Contacts. This will take you to the list of all the users you have added to your contacts list on FamilySearch.

How do I remove someone from my contacts list?
To remove someone from your contacts list, do the following:
On your contacts page, find the name of the person to remove, and click the name. From the pop-out box, click Remove Contact. The person will be removed from your contacts list.

What is the benefit of adding someone as a contact?
Adding someone as a contact has a couple of distinct benefits. First, it’s a great way to “save” people you want to keep track of. For example, you can use the Search feature to find friends you think may have registered for RootsTech. You can then save any you find to your friend list to easily keep track of your results and even start a conversation. Second, once the conference is over, the Relatives by Location list and Search will go away. The Contact List will remain available for a few weeks after RootsTech is over.

What does  “Close Relative” mean?
A close relative in your relative list represents someone in your immediate or closely related extended family, such as a

• Parent
• Sibling
• Child
• Spouse
• Aunt
• Uncle
• Cousin
• Niece
• Nephew
• Grandparent
• Grandchild

These are often living individuals, and the relationship is more familiar. For privacy reasons we don’t show as much information for these relatives as we do for the deceased.

Why did the number of my relatives decrease?
Scanning all of those trees and calculating all of those relationships requires a lot of processing. If we have so many participants that the system performance slows, we will reduce the number of generations scanned. This may lower the number of relatives we show. Rest assured your data is still preserved in Family Tree. We are simply calculating fewer relationships because we are scanning fewer generations of Family Tree.

How do I connect with other users with the same last name to see if I am related or to contact them?
When the RootsTech conference starts, there will be a feature to search for other users that have joined Relatives at RootsTech to see how you are related to them. Use the feature to add them to your Contacts List and message them.

Can a mobile user get the banner back if he or she dismissed it once?
Yes, if users choose to not show the banner at the top, they can get it back by reinstalling the app.

Why does it show DECEASED in the relative graph?
To protect privacy, deceased persons that are 1 generation above a living person will show “Deceased.”

Why does it not show portraits for users under 18?
To protect privacy of youth, for any user under 18, it does not display the portrait.

Does the Relatives at RootsTech Map show exact locations?
For privacy reasons the Relatives at RootsTech experience has been simplified to show only generally where your relatives are located. On the map, for example, location pins have been placed in the middle of each country, state, or province, respectively. Locations on the map are from what the users chose in their profile for location.

Why can't I print the relationships? 
Relatives at RootsTech is intended to promote social connection as you discover relationships with living relatives. It is an in-conference experience, not a research tool. To protect the privacy of others we don’t support printing family relationships.

Why can’t I see more than 300 relatives?
Because of the international reach of the RootsTech Connect conference, and the number of attendees, we are limited in how many family relationships we can show for each attendee. You can increase the scope of your results by changing the location in Relatives by Location to see the closest 300 for each location or use the Search to see 300 results based on your query. You can also view your Relatives by Ancestor, which will show up to 300 results for each.

Why do my parents have more relatives than I do?
We compare 10 generations of your family tree to 10 generations of the family tree of each attendee who opts into this experience. Your parents may have more relatives at RootsTech because 10 generations of their ancestry contain 1 more generation of ancestors than yours. The number of relatives expands exponentially with each generation we go back.

Where can I change the photo used for myself for Relatives at RootsTech?
The photo used for Relatives at RootsTech is set here: https://www.familysearch.org/identity/settings/profile

I have a “full” tree. Why do I have NO relatives, few, or only from one parent?

You may have a full tree in the limited generations shown, but this limited tree is not connected to a large tree, which is needed to find lots of relatives. A "larger tree" may not mean it needs to go back more generations. It may simply mean that you are not connected to a tree that others connected to. The limited trees for RootsTech are not fully connected to the FamilySearch tree that has many millions of people in it.

• Other issues can also limit your connections:
  
  • How deep the lines go.
  • How connected your lines are to various parts of the world or ethnicities, such as if your line is not of English descent, for example.
  • How accurate the relationships are in the tree on that line.

I had many relatives, and now I see NONE or very few.  What changed?

Someone has likely updated individuals in the tree. A person may have merged, changed parents, removed relationships or any similar kind of update that would change the relative path or cut off a connection to a large, connected tree.

Why do I only see relatives from one parent or when I choose the maternal filter?

1. See the answer above.
2. The maternal or paternal filter only applies to the top 300 people in the list. So, if the relatives are much more closely connected on the paternal side, they might crowd out the maternal side. It's actually much less likely to happen if you select a location or state or province. If you pick California, for example, you might only have 250 relatives from that state, and so all will be shown, and the paternal side can't crowd out the maternal side.
   

I have birth parents and adopted parents (or similar sets of 2 parents). Why do I see only one side, or can I choose to see only one line at a time?

1. No, setting a preferred parent will not filter or sort by that line.
2. However, the service will search ALL lines, both sets of parents, to find the closest path for relatives. There are many variables affecting why it does not seem to return any relatives. See the answers above.

Is there a way to see more than 300 relatives?
Yes, searching by location. You can select a different location, and the search will get a different 300 or whatever the count is for that location. This especially works in the United States and Canada, because you can select a state or province to see a new list of 300 from that state.

Is it possible to search Relatives at RootsTech to find family that are related through a spouse? (In-laws at RootsTech?)

No, it is not possible.

What can I do with the CONTACT list?

The contact list has a limit of 150. This list will remain after the RootsTech event is over for a few weeks to give users a chance to finalize connections and communication. It is not designed or implemented to support a long-term solution on FamilySearch.org. You can use the FamilySearch chat service to keep in contact with other users after the event. Once a message is sent to another user (after the RootsTech event), it will be in the FamilySearch chat inbox.

Can I see all the relatives of ONE ancestor down to all the living users?

Yes, on the mobile apps, there is a way to filter or group relatives from a common ancestor, but it will ONLY filter from the 300 limit in the current list.

Why do users who are siblings or a parent or child show as 2^nd cousin or such?

All users have their own FamilySearch account with their own tree of living persons.

So this problem you see, for example in your sister's tree, is because in her tree where she has living persons, she has added a copy of your father or mother and marked them as LIVING when one of them may not be living now. How the information is added or edited to your living space and to her living space affects results.

Another possibility is the relationships in each of the private spaces (living) are different for you and your sister. So one or both have a different path to your parents and grandparents.

Tip: If you want to stay in touch with relatives that you found through Relatives at RootsTech, including friends you found and tagged, send the relative or friend a message by clicking Send a Message for that person. That will add that relative or friend to your FamilySearch Chat, which keeps that person in your FamilySearch Inbox until you delete that person from the inbox. Once you do that there is no need to worry about the date that RootsTech Chat will be shut off (March 31st).

How fast will changes made in a tree be reflected in Relatives at RootsTech?

Normally this takes 30 to 60 minutes

Can I PRINT the relative list or the graph?

No, this is not supported. However, you can friend or message those users to save them to your contact list.

Why is the location count off by 1 or a few at times?

This is due to changes in the tree or users opting in and out between a relative refresh that happens about every 30 minutes or so.