Searching by ID versus name
It appears there has been an update to FamilySearch. Up until a week ago I could set search to ID# or name. Almost 100% of the time I search by ID#. Now each time I search by ID# I have to change from Search by name to Search by ID#. Can it be changed back so I can search by ID#, without clicking on it? If they could be reversed that would do the same thing.
Eric Pulley (314)249-5559 epulley@mstar.net
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Out of curiosity, why on earth does anyone ever need to search by ID? If I have the ID, there's nothing to search for: I can just use it, either directly in the URL, or in the box at the top of the Recents menu.
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Call me.... well, what you like - my son certainly finds interesting terminology to describe my practices - but I'm not a one for keyboard shortcuts, etc., just the good-old "copy/paste". So I copy the ID (just a click required on some parts of the Person page) and paste it into the "By ID" box in "Find". Maybe its a bit of a waste of time, but "old habits die hard" I'm afraid. But I will try to change, as what you're saying makes complete sense, of course.
(Five minutes later) Oh, that ID box above "Recent People". Would you believe I'd never noticed it till now? Well, not for how it could be utilised. Join the long list of "People I Exasperate" (my son & wife at the top).
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I use search by ID all the time. Sometimes you want to quickly get to a person and family in the tree and it is not someone from your recents list. I jot down notes of PIDs I want to return to later. It is very helpful when someone asks for help on a particular person, you ask for the ID and use find by ID and get to the person quickly. It is very useful and I liked that mine usually defaulted to it before this recent change.
Cindy
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I think Julia's point is that the ID can be inputted at the box above "Recent People", instead of going to "FIND" itself. It doesn't matter if you haven't viewed the ID recently. The other alternative she suggests is adding it to the end of the URL. I suppose it also depends on what kind of Family Tree page you are on at the time as to which seems the most suitable alternative to you.
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Yes, Paul is correct. I can see absolutely no reason to search for an ID when I already have it, because I can just use it by clicking Recents:
This will take me to the profile's Details page.
The other option is to paste the ID in place of whatever ID you're on, in the URL:
This will take me to whatever type of page I'm currently looking at, but for the new ID. (In this case, I would go to the input ID's Tree view.)
If I'm on a non-Tree page, such as Records Search, I generally just choose Family Tree - Tree from the top menu and get to the Recents box that way. I could equally use any of the other choices under that menu, including Find, but it'd still be shorter to use the box than to search.
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