Let me search just my ancestors
MikeRoan
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I would like to have the option to search just my personal family tree, both living and deceased people, rather than all of the people in all of FS's data bases. I use FS as my primary genealogical program to both find and store information. I don't have the bandwidth to maintain comprehansive records in more than 1 genealogy program. I think there are many others who would like to do so as well. As I work through (scan and attach) all of the hard copy data (pictures, letters, documents - wills, birth, marriage, & death records) my parents spent 20+ years collecting as they drove across the US, I move from family to family across 6-7 generations. I can't remember how I'm related to all of the people in my tree and being able to search just my tree would be very helpful.
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Comments
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Sandra June Kennedy said: I agree! I have one line I can never get to the end of without losing my direct line. If we could just enter a date to start at then go back beyond that it would help. I've tried following a name but it has not worked for me.
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Kathy Lynn Baumgarten said: When I get to my family tree, I'd like to be able to search the tree without arrowing through so many people! I have a HUGE tree!0
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Rangimarie Hohaia said: It will be definitely handy to have a Quick Search feature within the user's Pedigree Chart to quickly locate individuals by family names etc. in their pedigree chart (similar to the search feature in PAF5 or that of www.tribalpages.com. This will allow for users to quickly navigate through their pedigree chart immediately to the name they have selected.
A suitable location for this feature would be right beside the Print button as a drop-down menu perhaps.
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
""Quick Search for Individual" feature within your Pedigree Chart to quickly locate and navigate to individuals.0 -
Kathryn Grant said: Often people respond to a suggestion like this by saying, "There's no such thing as 'my tree' in Family Tree--it's all one big tree." While that's true, I agree with Shauna, and there is a way to do it: give users a way to specify that they only want to search within certain names related closely to them--i.e., only all direct line ancestors back x number of generations, or all descendants of a direct-line ancestor.
That would really be helpful!0 -
Christopher Allen Young said: I do think it would be helpful but this kind of search will be slower.
I also think we should be able to select a different start person and limit it to 4-5 generations at a time.0 -
Shauna Rae Foliaki said: It should be doable. It is in Ancestry. I almost prefer Ancestry because it is so much easier to navigate when searching a specific name in your own tree.0
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Chas Howell said: You are dealing with a much smaller tree with Ancestry compared to the much larger set of individuals on FSFT. No reason to give up your tree and tools in Ancestry. FSFT is just a different model with different benefits and restrictions. Use whichever tool works best for teach situation.0
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Tom Huber said: Agreed, Chas. I use both Ancestry and FamilySearch. My initial work is all done in Ancestry because the index corrections/additions are also searched. FamilySearch, of course, has never given index corrections any priority and only now is considering what such a correction feature may look like. Ron Tanner showed a mockup in his RootsTech slides.
Everything boils down to an independent local database and a separate family tree management program. I simply do not trust FamilySearch to not be impacted (no matter what I do) by inexperienced users, so the separate database allows me to keep at least one set up to date. And because the local program is fully certified, I can use it to keep the FamilySearch tree correct if someone changes it. Or, if the change is beneficial and complete with sources and reason statements, I can change my local database.0 -
David Newton said: Not possible. This site is a shared tree for everyone. Therefore if you search FSFT you are searching the whole thing and it cannot be limited to your blood relatives. Since there are over a billion entries in the whole tree the resources required to tell which are your blood relatives and which are not would be astronomical.
Consequently what you are after will never happen.0 -
JT said: David -- you're probably right, but I say "Never say Never".
FSFT knows how to determine if you are related to people within 15 generations up & back down.
So if the user is willing to click some new button to let the Find function run a bit slower, I don't see why the FSFT engineers couldn't or shouldn't provide the ability some day (eventually).0 -
Janice Luncford said: Of course it's possible. As a software engineer I know this would not be difficult, and as David pointed out, they already have the algorithm to do the 15 generation personal search. At the point they have each search "hit" they would compare it against the 15 generation names and refine the result list that way. It would be a slower operation, but certainly faster than the manual search and comparison I had to do. As with any feature, it's a matter of deciding if it's worth spending the time on and then scheduling it into a development cycle.0
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Janice Luncford said: Also, they could use their "show my relationship" algorithm to determine if each "hit" should be in the result list.0
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gasmodels said: Are you suggesting that the search should be the domain of anyone who you are related to by the current show my relationship algorithm. That would be a huge demand on the servers to accomplish that type of search - essentially have to start through the current several billion names and determine for each one if there was a relationship to the person requesting the information. I for one do not believe the benefit gained would be worth the effort to program, implement and then suffer the degrading of the system. I understand there are times when it is useful but I see them as very limited. I have never had an occasion to want that type of a search. I would much rather see some improvements in the current search routines that would be really useful. For example - there are many records in the system with just a given name -- say Mary but there is no ability to search for records with a blank surname. If you attempt to search leaving the surname blank it gives you all records with a given name Mary. If time is to be expended on enhancing the search features. Lets makes revisions that will really be helpful not something that will degraded performance and only have limited usefulness.1
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Tom Huber said: My solution is free, but requires using an external family tree management program. There are three that have free versions that allow you to download FamilySearch FamilyTree profiles to a local database — Ancestral Quest, Roots Magic, and Legacy. Those are available now, and not something that will likely be developed on the FamilySearch site sometime in the future.1
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Janice Luncford said: It was the Family Search staff who asked me to submit this request to the engineers. I'm leaving this discussion.0
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Tom Huber said: Janice, this forum is a community support forum for FamilySearch.
As a member of the community, I’ve provided an answer as to what is available now. There is no solution within FamilySearch itself.
Whether or not there will be a solution in the future is something that FamilySearch representatives will need to provide.0 -
Brian Jensen said: Janice,
Thanks for sharing this feature request. This is frequently asked for but we currently don't have a good design that would support this.0 -
David Newton said: Can it be done in the sense of can it be programmed? Of course yes. Can it be done in the sense of not overwhelming the database servers? No. Remember you are not the only person running searches. How about determining who the blood relations are for 1000 concurrent searches? For those chiming in about show my relationship, that is one person to one person; a whole different kettle of fish. That algorithm would not scale well.0
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Janice Luncford said: I was asked to submit this to the engineers.
BTW I tried submitting this on two different computers. The error is shown in the attached screenshot. When I clicked on the Continue button it changed to Continue... but nothing else happened. I left this screen open and later noticed it asked if I wanted to continue my post. When I clicked yes I was brought to this screen where I was able to continue.
Case: How to search only in my family tree (05111547)
2018-10-03 21:14::10 GMT
Details: I had shared a name with the temple (Lillian Holt). I wanted to unshare it so that I could do her endowment myself. I accidentally clicked on the Unsubmit rather than the Unshare and now I can't find her again to resubmit her name. I don't see a way to search only within my family tree. How can I find her again? Thank you, Janice Luncford
Response to this case
Dear Janice Luncford, We thank you for your terrific reply. We urge that you give your last message to us as a suggestion to the engineers. It is an excellent suggestion. The attached knowledge article will show you how to get to suggestion via feedback and let the engineers know what you think needs to be done. Again we thank you for working with your ancestors using familysearch.org. Thank you for contacting the FamilySearch support team.
This is your original case description: How to search only in my family tree
It turns out the issue wasn't solvable directly. I accidentally unsubmitted a name for temple work when I intended to only remove it from temple sharing so it vanished. The name is fairly common and had lots of hits in the search. If I could have specified I wanted the search limited to my tree it would have found the person immediately. The chat support person suggested I do a descendency search which didn't locate the person. I ended up clicking on each search hit, looking at the temple work done, and when I found one with only the work completed that I remembered I clicked on "show my relationship" to determine if it was the correct one. I finally found the right record and resubmitted it. I'm a software engineer so my problem solving skills are probably better than most. You really should add the ability to filter a search by family tree/related individuals.
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Paul said: Here's a suggestion: only allow people to be members of the "FamilySearch support team" if they have taken at least basic training in the use of both the features of the general website and, specifically, Family Tree.
Janice, and many others, are likely to become exasperated by, firstly, not being given basic advice - in this case, "There is no 'my family tree'", then being passed here. Having anticipated a "positive" reply to her problem (from her contact with Support) she is obviously then rather annoyed to hear the reality of the situation.
True, Janice has to accept the disappointing (to her) responses provided here, but the Support set-up - as most of us have found - is really not fit for purpose.0 -
A van Helsdingen said: If this is the FamilySearch FamilyTree (FSFT) you are talking about, then there is no "my tree". The FSFT is a global, open-edit tree for all humanity. No one "owns" any profile.
But I think your suggestion about being able to search only those profiles directly related to you is a good one.0 -
Jeff Wiseman said: If you go and select the "Find" item while viewing the pedigrees (or other pages, it shows up in many places):
You will get the following window that will allow you to search the Single Large FamilyTree for records:
Be aware that it can be confusing when you go looking for records. In general, a "Search" will hunt through historic records, and a "Find" will hunt through the big FamilySearch FamilyTree for records that have already been added to it.0 -
Jeff Wiseman said: As A Ven Helsdingen pointed out already, nobody on Family search has their "own" tree. There is only 1 large tree with almost 1.2 billion names in it that is owned by FS. All patrons are allowed to work in that tree making corrections and improvements to it, but per site policies, once you make changes to the tree, those changes belong to FS and as such, can be further improved on by anyone else on the site.0
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Michael W. McCormick, AG® said: What everyone else said is true and those are important things to understand, but it does not mean your idea is impossible or undesirable.
FamilySearch has the technology to walk up X number of generations from a person in the tree such as yourself, and down Y number of generations, and return that to show various things. That same ability could feasibly be used to provide a search filter on the FIND page or elsewhere to limit a search to people within a certain generational distance. You are not alone in wanting a feature like this. I personally find that responses here are often centered around why an idea is a bad idea or why it wont work, but did you know you can share your idea directly with Ron Tanner who oversees the development roadmap for FamilySearch Family Tree? Here is a link to his Facebook page where he has a form where you can submit things to him that he will address in his Facebook live videos that he does: https://www.facebook.com/familyhistor...0 -
jen beckemeier said: I ́d love this search option too. I cannot remember who belongs to whom especially when going back further than 4th generation.
Sometimes while trawling unindexed registers, I find a source and need to check whether it ́s been added to my ancestor but don ́t know where to find him/her. The name is familiar but that ́s all. If I had a one click option to find them, I could check and add immediately, if necessary0 -
Ken G Moyer said: I'll add my support that idea. Many times I run across a name that I remember as family but can't remember which branch that he/she/them reside on.
Thanks for bringing this good idea up
Ken G Moyer0 -
Tom Huber said: First, welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.
I like the idea of being able to search only your own ancestral lines... but there is a solution to the fact that FamilySearch does not now support such a filtered search: maintaining your own local copy of your ancestral lines and their descendants.
There are three fully-certified programs (Ancestral Quest, Legacy, and Roots Magic) that have free versions in the Solutions Gallery (link at the bottom of this and most FamilySearch pages) that allows you to download your ancestors and their descendants. Given the size of the tree, it can take a lot of time to do that, but once done, then you'll have a local database from which you can work if not connected to the internet. In addition, you will better be able to work with living relatives in your local database. For many people, the free version is sufficient. For those wanting more flexibility in reports and capabilities, the paid versions add a lot of power.
Each of the three have their own fans. My personal favorite is Ancestral Quest because it is basically an advanced version of the old free PAF (Personal Ancestral File) program that was once offered by the Church. The look and feel is similar. For Church members, all three offer ordinance reservation and tracking capabilities. It is my understanding that besides FamilySearch, Roots Magic also offers an interface with Ancestry trees. I'm in hopes that one day, Ancestral Quest will also offer that capability.
As to when FamilySearch may offer the filtering capability -- we don't know. A lot depends upon how such a feature would be prioritized and resolving any existing problems that prevents its easy implementation. Another consideration is the amount of processing power required and how many users of the feature it could support before becoming badly bogged down. Likewise, FamilySearch has limited resources when it comes to the development teams, so one can hope, but should not hold their breath.0 -
Cindy Hecker said: Are you aware of the recents tab? I can put names into there to help me find them or if I have touched them recently they are on the list there. I too use my offline software Roots Magic or that very search box on Ancestry to help me find my relative on Familysearch. It is a helpful.
BUT I do not know how you would find "your" person any better in FSFT as maybe 1000s of people have the same name as the person you want to find. Entering the parameters you know with dates and locations can help you locate them. How would they(Familysearch) make a search to narrow down to someone you have seen or touched before? That is the recents tab as far as I know. It is a BIG tree you are searching.0 -
Barbara Nelson said: This is a feature I have often wished for. The way I envision it working is to start with a PID I input, and then follow the descendant chains down until the system found someone matching on name, location, approx dates, etc.
It would narrow the search results significantly if it only produced results that were descendants of the named PID.
'Recents' is helpful, but not if you are trying to find a name from a while back.
I can see where that could be system intensive, but it sure would be nice.0 -
Adrian Bruce said: The other important thing about a local copy is that it gives you a backup in the event that someone edits your FSFT relatives in such a way that you can't tell what the original was - you only know that what's there is wrong.0
This discussion has been closed.