How do I write a life history about a person in Family Tree?

Article Id: 20229
March 24, 2024

In Family Tree, you can write a brief life history to summarize a person's life. The life history appears on the Details tab of the person page. When you write a life history, you can choose to have it appear on the About tab instead of the computer-generated history.

What is a brief life history?

A summary of a person’s life. Everyone’s life is different, so life histories look different across family tree.

You can include information such as milestones, world events, and names of others in the family.

Tips

  • Length: While a Brief Life History can have up to 10,000 characters, people are more likely to read short ones.
  • Research notes and warnings: A brief life history is not for research notes and warnings; use an alert note instead.
  • Stories: Add stories about an ancestor by adding it to the Memories tab as a story. You can enhance the story with audio recordings or photos.
  • Save your work: We recommend that you type the life history into a word-processing document first, then copy it into Family Tree. Otherwise your session could time out, and you would lose your work.

Steps (website)

Landscape, Portrait, Fan Chart, and Descendancy Views

  1. Sign in to FamilySearch, click Family Tree, and then click Tree.
  2. Find the person on the tree that you want to enhance.
  3. Click the person's name. In the details that pop up, click the person's name again. You see the person’s page.
  4. Click Details.
  5. Scroll to the bottom of this tab.
  6. Click Add Brief Life History.
  7. Enter the Brief Life History and a reason statement.
  8. You can use your brief life history and replace the history on the tab. Click Publish this Brief Life History to the about page.
  9. Click Save.

First Ancestor View

  1. Sign in to FamilySearch, click Family Tree, and then click Tree.
  2. If needed, switch to the First Ancestor view.
  3. Navigate to the person that you want to edit.
  4. Click the person's name.
  5. On the side sheet, scroll to the bottom and click Add Brief Life History. (Note: If the person already has a brief life history, go to the person page to change it.)
  6. Enter a brief life history and a reason statement.
  7. Click Save.

Steps (mobile app)

  1. Navigate to the Person page of the individual whose information that you want to correct.
  2. Tap Details.
  3. Tap +.
  4. Tap Brief Life History.
  5. Enter the life history. On an Android device, tap Save. On an Apple iOS device, tap Continue, then enter a reason that the information is correct and tap Save.

How do I correct a brief life history that was written by a user?
In Family Tree, how do I correct a computer-generated life history?

Was this helpful?