Starting cold with FamilySearch Tree app for smartphones

LegacyUser

Douglas R Buck said: Several in our area use smartphones instead of a computer including investigators and new members. The FamilySearch Tree App for android or Apple would be nice for them to use if they could use it to enter their own names without relying upon upon names previously enter on the computer version of Family Tree. Thank you.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: One of the most important concepts that all new users of Family Tree whether investigators, new members, or people with no connection to the church need to learn and understand as quickly as possible is that none of us ever "start cold" with Family Tree. They are not starting a new tree. They are always just joining the existing communal tree and should never re-enter or create a duplicate for someone who already exists in Family Tree.

When church members come to Family Tree for the first time, assuming they have created their accounts properly and entered their membership numbers, their own personal entry is created from their membership records and unless things have changed, if parents and/or children are shown on their records, those will also be created in Family Tree, potentially tying them into the main tree right there.

I'm not sure of the process for people that do not have a membership record, but it uses to be that one was immediately prompted to create a Family Tree record for oneself.

But back to your question.

If you are requesting the ability to import a GEDCOM file using the app as one can kind of do on the web version using the current system which is cumbersome, slow, and prone to creating a massive number of duplicates that then need to be carefully found and merged one by one, due the problems such imports have caused for other users of Family Tree, many current users of Family Tree would be strongly against this.

If you are requesting the ability to enter a new person in Family Tree who is not connected to anyone else in Family Tree when starting to research that person and working backward generation by generation until finding how to join that person into the main tree, this is currently possible in the app just like it is in the web version. This function is located at the same place in both the app and the web version at the very end of the Recents list:

Web Version:



App Version: