FHAR
Questions regarding the bar charts:
The last FHAR for 2021 reported statistics for 2019, 2020, and 2021. These numbers were 67.6%, 68.3%, and 69% for the 4 Generations block. The first FHAR report for 2022 shows the following numbers for 2020, 2021, and 2022: 67.8%, 68.2%, and 39.2%. I do not understand the differences for the same year bars and how the 2022 percent can be 30% lower. This trend appears across the Member Login and Family History Activities blocks. I can understand a small difference due to members moving in and out, but 30% is baffling.
Can anyone help me to better understand the year-end transition of the numbers?
Answers
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Sign into FamilySearch and read this Help Center Article for the official information about the change in the calculation:
Change to the Family History Activity Report (FHAR)
The old statistic showed ALL members with trees with 4 generations. Even if they had never created an account. There are IDs for them in the Tree based on Membership (The Membership database helped to seed the Tree in the beginning).
I saw this myself when I helped my son create his account in 2018 and he already had an ID created in 2014 and 4 gen in the Tree.
This is also why all the work we have done over the years to get members to create accounts never would change this number much.
Now the statistic shows only those who HAVE FamilySearch accounts with 4 gen as a percentage of total members in the unit.
So as we work to help others create accounts, this statistic will go up.
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Also the slight differences can be from members moving in and/or out of your unit and their activity levels in FamilySearch. If someone moves in and they aren't active in FamilySearch your % will go down. If someone who is really active in FamilySearch moves out, your % will also go down.
Also they are YTD (year to date numbers). So you are looking at end of year and beginning of year numbers. From your examples above:
End of year 2020 - 68.3% and compared to beginning of year 2020 - 67.8%
End of year 2021 - 69% and compared to beginning of year 2021 - 68.2%
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I think I understand, but let me check:
In the January 2022 FHAR report my First Four Generations number of 39.2% reflects that only 39.2% of those members with a FamilySearch account have completed 4 generations. Is this correct?
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Is there anywhere now where the number of members with a FamilySearch Account is shown? As it stands, I cannot tell if the 39.2% represents that percent of 100, 200, or 300 members of the ward.
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The statistic is the % of those who have FamilySearch accounts (with 4 generations) compared to the total number of members in the unit. It is not saying that 39% of those with accounts have 4 gen. It is saying that 39% of the unit's members HAVE accounts (that have 4 gen).
So you have the total % from the end of the previous year. That was all members with 4 generation in the Tree even if they have never created an account. So you had 69% - for simplicity, let's say you have 100 members in the unit. Meaning 69 have 4 gen trees. Now your stat is saying 39% of that total membership. So again, if you have only 100 members - you really only have 39 who actually have FamilySearch accounts. The other 30 that were shown in the stat before, they have 4 gen trees, but they don't know it yet, because they have never created an account.
My suggestion would be to apply your 39.2% to the total number of members in your unit. Then that number would give you a pretty good idea of the number of people in your ward who HAVE FamilySearch accounts.
The best way to find out WHO the people are is to work with each person and family in the unit to help them with family history. You'll quickly learn who has an account and who doesn't. When they create their account for the first time, it will show them their membership connected tree that is already within FamilySearch and your statistic will start to go back up.
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Thanks for trying to clarify this statistic, but the real calculation is a bit different. It's confusing because the "First Four Generations of Ancestors in the Tree" could be interpreted in different ways. But the actual calculation is based on the number of ancestors, not the number of members. Here are the details.
For purposes of this calculation, "Four Generations of Ancestors" is counting the 15 people in your four generations: you, your 2 parents, your 4 grandparents, and your 8 great-grandparents. The percentage for you will be how many of those 15 people are in Family Tree. If you have 12 of those 15 people, you will get 80%.
When a FamilySearch account is created for a member of the Church, the system will look at the parents listed on membership records and create tree persons for any living parents, or create relationships to deceased tree persons who were members of the Church. Thus a person whose 4-gen ancestors were all members of the Church could very well get all 15 people added automatically, as soon as they create a FamilySearch account. A person whose parents (or other ancestors) are not members of the Church will have to add people to the Family Tree manually until they can connect to deceased ancestors in the Tree.
The new change is that these people in the Tree are counted only for members who have a FamilySearch account and have signed in at least once since the account was created. Previously these 4-gen trees were created behind the scenes even if the member never created an account. But now a member who has not created an account will count for 0%.
For the entire ward, the denominator of the statistic is 15 times the total number of youth and adults in the ward ("youth" starts with those who are turning 12 in this calendar year). The numerator of the statistic is the total number of these 4-generation ancestors who are in the Tree.
So suppose a ward has 100 members who are youth or adults. The denominator is 1500. Suppose that 30 of the members have full trees, 10 have trees with 11 people, and another 5 have 8 people in their trees. The calculation would be:
30 x 15 + 10 x 11 + 5 x 8 = 600, and 600/1500 = 40%
But for last year's number, suppose that there were 20 additional members who have full trees based on membership records (a total of 50 such members) but never created a FamilySearch account. Last year the calculation would have been:
50 x 15 + 10 x 11 + 5 x 8 = 900 and 900/1500 = 60%
Hopefully that helps explain how this is calculated, and what changed from 2021 to 2022.
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Thank you so much for this detailed explanation.
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Very helpful!
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In the zoom meeting it was clarified that the 4 generation statistic now only applies to those who sign into FamilySearch in the past 12 months. If they go a year without signing in, they will drop from the statistic, is my understanding.
Previously, it was an accumulated statistic.
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Can anyone tell me if the age was updated from 12 to 8 years old? I was told this today but I think this is incorrect.
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That is not correct. It is true that each person has to have signed in to FamilySearch at some point in order to have their 4-generation ancestors counted. But once they have signed in, they will have a FamilySearch account and they will be included in the statistic. There is no requirement to sign in each year.
There is a separate statistic on the FHAR for "Members Logging-in". That one does indeed require the user to sign in each year in order to be counted for that year for this particular statistic. But this has nothing to do with the 4 generations statistic.
And the statement "Previously, it was an accumulated statistic." is also misleading. The big change is that previously people would be counted based on information deduced from membership records, even if they had never signed in to FamilySearch. Now those who have never signed in will not be counted. They have to sign in at least once in order to be counted.
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No, the FHAR continues to cover youth and adults; it does not include Primary children. This was covered in the RootsTech presentation that covered the FHAR in detail:
In the chat, there was this Q&A, which clarifies the exact transition dates for youth:
Q: The report refers to adults and youth. I assume that means that each January we start including all the youth who are turning 12 in that year -- the new Young Men and Young Women.
A: Correct, all youth are included starting in January of the year that they turn 12. Similarly, youth transition to the Adult "bucket" in January of the year that they turn 18.
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Do the FHAR statistics for indexing include data from the 1950 indexing project yet?
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So if I understand this correctly, the denominator counts all ward members 12 yr and older regardless of having a family search account while the numerator only counts the completion of the four generations for members with family search accounts. So any member not using a computer such as elderly members or a 12 yo that is not yet into family history would lower the ward percentage. Correct?
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Sorry I'm slow to respond; I didn't see this until today.
You're certainly correct about the denominator -- it includes all members who will turn 12 or older this calendar year.
You're close, but not quite correct about the numerator. It's not about "the completion of the four generations" but rather the fraction of the 15 possible 4-generation ancestors who are in Family Tree. Each member can get partial or full credit; if you have only 6 of the 15 people in the tree, then you would count for 40%; if you have all 15 of 15, then you count for 100%.
And it's certainly the case that there will be a variety of situations where members have never signed in to FamilySearch. Some elderly non-computer users, young people who have not yet created an account and signed in, or inactive members who have no interest will all count for 0 in the numerator, while still being part of the denominator, and thus will lower the ward percentage.
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No, only work done in the actual Web Indexing system count for FHAR indexing statistics. The efforts for the 1950 US Census were done as part of the Get Involved system, which is verification of computer indexing. Since that is a different system, it doesn't get included in the FHAR. I've heard rumors that suggest that those Get Involved statistics might eventually be combined into the FHAR indexing statistics, but that hasn't happened yet (and I haven't heard any official statement that it definitely will).
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In Article 1464 dated Feb 8, 2022 entitled "What information is on the Family History Activity Report (FHAR)"
"Definitions: Four Generations: Members with their first 4 generations showing in Family Tree.
First 4 Generations of Ancestors in the Tree: The percentage of members with FamilySearch accounts who have 4 generations in FamilySearch Family Tree"
I am still confused about what this statistic really is telling us. Is it the % of Ward members who have completed 4G in FamilySearch or is it "% of First 4 Generations of Ancestors" ? The later explanation described by Alan seems more in line with typical Quarterly Report stats of % = actual/potential. The actual nodes are those in members FS tree and the potential is the number of nodes if you include all adult and youth in the Ward.
Both statistics would be useful, but I am confused which one is actually being quoted in the statistics. Has anyone be able to receive clarification from the people who actually produce this report?
Thanks.
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It is unfortunate that the Help Center article is misleading. The reference to "percentage of members" is clearly wrong, since the statistic doesn't count members, but rather ancestors for members. It counts the percentage of those 15 ancestors (self, 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents) present in the Family Tree for all adults and youth in the ward. I have requested that this article be corrected; we'll see if that happens.
The accurate information is in the RootsTech video I linked earlier. It was created by Curtis Petersen, who at the time was the manager of the FamilySearch Data Analytics team. That team is responsible for collecting the information that goes into the FHAR, so the information in the video is official and reliable. That video was unavailable for a few days, but I'm happy to report that it is once again available at:
Go to the 7:20 mark in that video to learn the details about the 4-generation statistic. As I have said in my earlier posts in this conversation, it definitely counts those 15 ancestors for each adult and youth in the ward.
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