Friends on the new Familysearch homepage
I have been trying a living person as a friend on the new home page but I can't find her. I see others but not her, she has also tried looking me up but unable to.
how do I go find her or go about it?
Best Answer
-
Hi Julee Welcome to FamilySearch Community and posting your question about friends. When you add a friend using the "Friends" tab on the home page, they can see the post you make. In order for you to see their posts, they need to add you as a friend. Hope this helps.
0
Answers
-
@SETH EDUKU, the only Living profiles you can see are the ones you enter yourself. So neither you nor your friend can see each other's profile.
0 -
@SETH EDUKU You will need to know/find your friend's username on FamilySearch, not her PID or actual name.
0 -
So I missed understood Seth's issue, I never saw that "Friend" tab before. Some kind of Social Media feature. Is it really the username you need or is it the Contact name one uses on FS? For instance, my Contact name is Chas Howell but that is not my username. On the Advanced Search it asks for the "Name or Contact ID."
0 -
I only know about it because a friend wanted to connect with me a few days ago. That was the first time I saw it. My connection with him is to his username, which is not a name. You can also use the link feature and share the link with someone to connect. See the "Share Link" from my screenshot.
0 -
Seth If you don't get this resolved you might consider posting this question to the "New Person Page" Group, since it is clearly a New Person Page feature. You will need to join the Group to post there.
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/316-new-person-page
0 -
Can anyone help with adding friends? I know how to add them, but how do I see there post and how do they see mine?
0 -
I try to add a friend on the new FamilySearch home page and it doesn't work. It cannot find a name or the FS ID number entered. What am I suppose to enter. It will not take the @ symbol.
0 -
Right, you cannot use the @ symbol. Type in their Contact ID without the @ symbol. If you get too many results (try finding the right Charles Taylor!) Your best bet is to click SHARE LINK, then click COPY LINK and send a message to the person you are trying to invite to become your friend with that link pasted into the message.
However, you bring up a good point that it is very difficult to find the person you are looking for in the way the system searches for friends. We will forward this to the folks working on this tool to see if they can fix it so that it is easier to find the person you are looking for.
0 -
I am also trying to use the friends tab on the home page. It's not working for me very well. I have tried typing in names, married and maiden, and people come up, but not the ones I am looking for. I also can't find any information via the help button. I finally figured out what the contact ID is - that also is not explained in Help - and asked two friends for theirs. One of them worked when I entered it and one did not. Suggestions? Also there is nothing that really explains what that tab is for.
0 -
To look up a friend what you need is NOT their Contact ID, but rather their Profile Name. Some people will make these the same, but others make them different. Both values are set in the Profile tab of Settings. It's too bad that these are not explained very well or used consistently. The help article about profile settings tries to explain these values: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/about-the-familysearch-profile . But it's not obvious what the distinction is between the profile name ("the name by which you are known on FamilySearch") and the Contact ID ("associated with anything you add or edit on FamilySearch").
When you are looking up a potential friend on the Friends tab on the Home page, type their profile name. In the list of matches, the profile name will be shown first, followed by the Contact ID. The person's profile photo will also be shown (if they have set their profile photo and made it public); these clues can help you determine if you've found the right person. Note also that if you only have a person's Contact ID, you can use the Advanced Search (available when you click in the "Find Friends" field) and you will be able to use the Contact ID there to do your search.
A final important note: you will only see a person in the list of matches if they have enabled "Include my profile information in directory search results" in their Permissions tab of Settings.
1 -
Keep in mind that you cannot find people who do not want to be found.
There is a privacy setting under your account settings for whether you show up in the directory where you find friends or not:
If this is turned off, the person will never appear when searching to add them as a friend.
0 -
Mod note - two discussions have been merged here. I think I removed all the duplicated posts. Please let me know if something is missing or if you want something more removed from your own comment(s).
0 -
Thank you Alan! I think your last sentence is the critical one. If the person has not opted in to 'Include my profile information in directory search results' their profile will not show up. I just tested with my husband's account. I couldn't find him at first. I flipped the switch on the directory results and immediately I could find him.
0
