I was wondering about the different partner websites that are linked to FamilySearch, like Ancestry,
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Thank you for your help Brett!
So what would you say each of the websites is best for? I've heard that Find My Past is really good for records from Great Britain. What about the other websites?
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Dont limit your avenues of research
use whatever site/resource you can to help your research efforts.
(trying not to spend much money in your attemps - unless you really feel you must)
FamilySearch should/does not have a monopoly on genealogical records.
here is a link of my favorite sites: (most free)
http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/links.htm
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The way they each work with FS can be different. For example, if you have a partner Ancestry.com account (i.e., you are a church member), you can pull pieces of the FSFT into a tree that you have created in ancestry.com. You can also link records in that Ancestry.com tree to the equivalent records in the FSFT. At any time you can do a comparison of a linked record between the FSFT and Ancestry.com tree and then transfer data from one to the other as your desire.
On the other hand, if you have a MyHeritage account you can have a similar tree in MyHeritage linked to the FSFT. However, in this case your tree in MyHeritiage is literally a "remote controlled" piece of the actual FSFT that is "imaged" into your MyHeritage account. It uses a "batch" type sync mechanism between the trees where when you have made changes to the tree in MH, Or changes have been made to the FSFT, when you do a sync, it syncs your ENTIRE MH tree with the FSFT.
So changes to records in the FSFT made since your last sync will modify and be reflected in YOUR MH tree after a sync (i.e., your MH tree will be kept looking like the FSFT records). If you modify one of the records in your MH tree and then do a sync, that change will typically be placed into the FSFT and the two trees will once again look the same.
There are some idiosyncrasies though that you must be aware of. Suppose that you have performed a sync between your MH tree and the FSFT, and then make an alteration in your MH tree. If someone else makes a change on that same record in the FSFT itself before you do another sync, the data that has been changed in the FSFT by someone else will take precedence over the change that you made and your MH tree will be updated to reflect what was in the FSFT, thus eliminating the changes that YOU had made to your MH tree! So you don't want to be making changes in your MH tree and then waiting a long time to get around to syncing them as you could end up losing changes that you had made.
I've not looked closely at the MH tree mechanism recently so this is how I remember the last information I got on it. I know that MH employees used to follow the GetSatisfaction.com forum and could address some of these issues. But that sync mechanism scares me to death. Everytime something goes wrong in the MH interface to the FSFT, massive amounts of data can be corrupted in less than a second or two. It is happened a couple of times already. I don't believe that the batch type sync that they have is such a good idea.
Another thing is that in the MH trees that are set up linked to the FSFT, they are just as susceptible of being modified by OTHER PEOPLE. As other people make changes in the FSFT, those changes will MODIFY your records in MH every time you run a batch sync there.
Other items are that many members of the church who have DNA tests and want to track that data use sites like Ancestry.com and My Heritage (or 23 and me). The FSFT is not set up to track DNA issues at all, so if you want to do this, you'll need a different site than the FSFT.
Those are operational differences. The other types of differences are the historic record collections that each have. For example, Find My Past has a much larger collection of records for Britain and parts of Europe than FS does. Fold3 has a lot of military record IMAGEs even though index data alone (without the images) is usually available elsewhere. I think that a premium Ancestry.com account (i.e., not a church partnership account) will let you see those record images as well.
The search engines in FSFT are sometimes lacking as well. Many times when I can't find a record that I know is actually in the FS archives, I'll go to Ancestry.com and for some reason it will let me find it.
One other things thing that you might consider is that EVERYONE doing this type of work needs to have their own private copy of their family data that no one else can muck around with and that you can use as a kind of "backup" for anything that you put elsewhere. This is NOT POSSIBLE when using the FSFT since it is a single SHARED tree. If you are using the FSFT as your primary record system, you are going to get frustrated, disappointed, and confused when trying to figure out how work that you've done in the FSFT has been changed by others (whether it be right or wrong).
So anyone working primarily in the FSFT should probably have one of the third party certified tools on their PC such as Ancestral Quest, RootsMagic, or Legacy so that they can always have a reference point. A tree in places like Ancestry.com could also work for this although it is not quite as flexible. However it could be really handy if you are also tracking DNA. Also, even though a MyHeritage tree linked to the FSFT is specifically in your MH account, others can still change it indirectly by making changes to the actual FSFT, so that type of tree in MH would not work well as a backup. unfortunately, f you have other personal trees in MH, you cannot link those to the FSFT and so getting information transferred is a nuisance requiring the use of ineffective GEDCOM files or other intermediate PC based tools.
I personally use Ancestral Quest for research notes (FSFT doesn't support this very well at all) and to backup (sync) all person records and relationships that I have vetted and feel that they are "good so far". I do most of my research and vitals evolution in the FSFT, but occasionally when I can't find some records, I go to my church partnered Ancestry.com account to find other sources.
And if I get small subtree information that doesn't match things in the FSFT, I can put them into my PC database (NOT linked to the FSFT) and I can work on them there until I am confident enough that I can go into the FSFT and start major rearrangements there.
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If you have free access through membership of the LDS Church, why not just try them out? Not being a member myself, I recently took out a subscription to Find My Past and can confirm coverage is excellent for many areas in England. However, you will need to sign-up to ScotlandsPeople if you want to see images of parishes in Scotland.
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Good advice.
"FamilySearch should/does not have a monopoly on genealogical records"
This is also quite true although their integration of the FSFT and the historic records that they have is pretty well just as good as any other site. However, FamilySearch DOES have a monopoly on the support of records being prepared for temple ordinances! Anyone that is preparing person records for temple ordinances has no choice. Those records must be put into the FamilySearch FamilyTree in order for record vetting and ordinance card assignment to occur.
So if you are in this category of users, then you will be using the FSFT to a large extent.
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agreed
Im referring to research.
Im just saying dont limit YOUR RESEARCH to FamilySearch only - you will be depriving yourself from a vast amount of valuable records .
but yes - FS is the only tool for temple submission (which makes sense knowing who is subsisizing FS) - but by no means does that mean its the only tool for gathering the genealogical records in the first place.
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Agree completely,
note though that my experience is likely not the same as others, but since most of my relatives coming from SE Ohio, by collecting just the information that FS has available, I can solidly identify them. For me it is only occasionally when I'm seeing some confusion in the tree that I need to look outside of the FS domain to get more information to confirm things.
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yes - but family history is much much more than just gathering enough info on names/dates to take the work to the temple.
There is plentiful information to supplement what you find in FS.
Dont get me wrong - FS is an amazing tool and has extensive records - more than anyone else.
and for those of the LDS faith - temple work is critical.
I'm just saying dont limit yourself in finding information about yoru ancestors for no good reason.
to me LDS Family History Research is so much more than just taking the name to the temple.
that is ultimately one great goal - I agree - but my goal is just as much - coming to KNOW who our ancestors really were so that when we meet them - we will not just know a name and date - but truely KNOW who they were and what there life was like - and know enough about them to be able to one day embrace them and THANK them for their life they lived and their sacrifices for future generations
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All really good points. Obviously there is a continuum between getting enough records to uniquely identify a person in order to perform the temple ordinance work, and the very in depth study of those persons to understand them better and what their life was like.
Although I occasionally enjoy the latter, since I am retired and "running low on time here" I am more focused on the former than the latter. In not too many years I will likely be able to get information on the latter directly from those individuals themselves. 😀
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I am associated with a woman who has co-authored the genealogies of different families from Greece. She donated a copy of her books to the library. Now she has volunteered to translate the records for Spetsai, Greece. Is there any interest in this offer of service? Because of the lockdown for COVID, she would need to do this from home rather than go to a center. It definitely is a project many could benefit from. Please advise of the possibilities.
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HI @dawnastevens53 , because your most recent comment is not related to your original question about the opinions of other users who may be using Partner Products that are not part of the FamilySearch.org website, we suggest that you might want to post your question about whether or not someone can request to index records separate from this question about Partner Products or websites.
Having just read your comment, it is about Indexing projects and could certainly be posted in the Indexing Category of the Community Help Center. As a potential answer for this additional concern, please review the following knowledge article which is from our Help Center.
You may want to share this knowledge article with the person who has donated her books but not wishes to translate records from Greece for indexing purposes. She is also welcome to post her desire to assist in the Indexing category if she would prefer to get direct instructions for herself.
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