How to create a listing of all members of your family tree in alphabetical order
I have created a large family tree which I am trying to add as many photos to the members of that tree. At present I am searching and downloading a weekly photographic journal of a local paper which has a wealth of photographs taken in the early 1900's. Quite often the photographs have a list of people in the photograph. As I have over a large number of ancestors on my tree I can't remember all of them so I am looking to create a printout list in alphabetical order of my family tree members so I can refer to it quickly as I am viewing the photos. There appears to be this sort of facility in Ancestry and was wondering if the same applies for Family Search
Answers
-
Ancestry's structure is as different from FamilySearch's as an 18-wheeler is from a freight train. Both serve the same broad purpose (hauling freight, or recording genealogy), but they use totally different methods to do it (roads versus rails and just one load versus hundreds; individual trees versus a single collaborative tree).
In FS's one, single, collaborative, communal family tree, determining the scope of such a listing would be a highly non-trivial endeavor. How should the system determine which profiles belong on your list, and which ones don't? Should it do a data download, going up M generations from you and then down N generations from those ancestors? When one of the offline programs that can synchronize with FS does such a download, it takes many hours, unless you set M and N to something uselessly small, like 2 or 3. Or should FS's system go through the over-a-billion profiles currently on the tree, and run the "show my relationship" routine on all of them? Figuring one second per profile, that'd only take a few decades. (There were 1.2 billion profiles on the Tree in 2019, per a blog article: https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/online-family-tree. 1.2 billion seconds comes out to roughly 38 years.)
FS does offer the My Contributions listing for profiles that you've edited, and the Following list for profiles that you've marked as being of particular interest to you. You can also use the chart views combined with your browser's Find function to find your relatives by name. (For direct ancestors, the Fan Chart is particularly useful.) However, for your purpose, I think that using one of the aforementioned offline programs is really your best bet. Many of them offer free versions that should be able to generate an alphabetical list for you, after you spend the time to acquire the data from FS. Check the Solutions Gallery under Family Tree Management for some options.
3 -
You say you have a large tree, how large ?, is large?.
My family tree contains over 86000 persons.
Of these there are 11700 identifiable relatives not in the way ancestry would show.
0 -
Really, is this at all helpful? Whilst not as big as yours I consider it large. It keeps me busy. The question to you would rather be, can you print a list of your 11700 indentifiable relatives ? Is it in alphabetcal order and if so how did you do it.
1 -
In response to Julia's post, I offer the following comments.
- I am aware of the difference between Family Search and Ancestry. Since there appears to be some business connection between the two, it is not unreasonable to hope for some crossover of procedures between the two. I have always thought that Family Searches approach of substantiated evidence is far superior to Ancestry's more flexible evidential requirements.
- In your second paragraph, you mentioned a highly non trivial endeavour (a big job), it may not be that big at all. The photos I am viewing only cover 30 years, the persons of interest number to be matched should be quite manageable and that is why I asked for help. Adding photos of a person gives a confidence that you have the right person. Because these photos contain sporting, social and cultural activities, the ability to make intuitive guesses as to where other source records could be obtained are enhanced. I think that is what your Roots Tech 2023 contributor Roots Tech UK was getting at.
- Yes, I have firstly looked at "My Contributions" and "Following". Of the two, "My Contributions" is closest but not fit for purpose. That Family Search feature give a total list of all contributions not a list of who you have contributed on. That facilty within "My Contributions" would be far more helpful, but not quite there.
- At this point, it would appear that there is no existing solution and from your comments there is unlikely to be. I will just muddle through the best I can , pity it's so time consuming.
1 -
The Solutions Gallery is your best option @Dave Sherrin, as Julia suggested. For example, you can download those X generations and all their connected relatives into Family Tree Maker and print the list from one of the many report options available.
FTM is not the only option - there are at least 4 more that I have used.
3
