FHAR
Questions regarding the bar charts:
The last FHAR for 2021 reported statistics for 2019, 2020, and 2021. These numbers were 67.6%, 68.3%, and 69% for the 4 Generations block. The first FHAR report for 2022 shows the following numbers for 2020, 2021, and 2022: 67.8%, 68.2%, and 39.2%. I do not understand the differences for the same year bars and how the 2022 percent can be 30% lower. This trend appears across the Member Login and Family History Activities blocks. I can understand a small difference due to members moving in and out, but 30% is baffling.
Can anyone help me to better understand the year-end transition of the numbers?
Answers
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Sign into FamilySearch and read this Help Center Article for the official information about the change in the calculation:
Change to the Family History Activity Report (FHAR)
The old statistic showed ALL members with trees with 4 generations. Even if they had never created an account. There are IDs for them in the Tree based on Membership (The Membership database helped to seed the Tree in the beginning).
I saw this myself when I helped my son create his account in 2018 and he already had an ID created in 2014 and 4 gen in the Tree.
This is also why all the work we have done over the years to get members to create accounts never would change this number much.
Now the statistic shows only those who HAVE FamilySearch accounts with 4 gen as a percentage of total members in the unit.
So as we work to help others create accounts, this statistic will go up.
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Also the slight differences can be from members moving in and/or out of your unit and their activity levels in FamilySearch. If someone moves in and they aren't active in FamilySearch your % will go down. If someone who is really active in FamilySearch moves out, your % will also go down.
Also they are YTD (year to date numbers). So you are looking at end of year and beginning of year numbers. From your examples above:
End of year 2020 - 68.3% and compared to beginning of year 2020 - 67.8%
End of year 2021 - 69% and compared to beginning of year 2021 - 68.2%
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I think I understand, but let me check:
In the January 2022 FHAR report my First Four Generations number of 39.2% reflects that only 39.2% of those members with a FamilySearch account have completed 4 generations. Is this correct?
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Is there anywhere now where the number of members with a FamilySearch Account is shown? As it stands, I cannot tell if the 39.2% represents that percent of 100, 200, or 300 members of the ward.
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The statistic is the % of those who have FamilySearch accounts (with 4 generations) compared to the total number of members in the unit. It is not saying that 39% of those with accounts have 4 gen. It is saying that 39% of the unit's members HAVE accounts (that have 4 gen).
So you have the total % from the end of the previous year. That was all members with 4 generation in the Tree even if they have never created an account. So you had 69% - for simplicity, let's say you have 100 members in the unit. Meaning 69 have 4 gen trees. Now your stat is saying 39% of that total membership. So again, if you have only 100 members - you really only have 39 who actually have FamilySearch accounts. The other 30 that were shown in the stat before, they have 4 gen trees, but they don't know it yet, because they have never created an account.
My suggestion would be to apply your 39.2% to the total number of members in your unit. Then that number would give you a pretty good idea of the number of people in your ward who HAVE FamilySearch accounts.
The best way to find out WHO the people are is to work with each person and family in the unit to help them with family history. You'll quickly learn who has an account and who doesn't. When they create their account for the first time, it will show them their membership connected tree that is already within FamilySearch and your statistic will start to go back up.
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Thanks for trying to clarify this statistic, but the real calculation is a bit different. It's confusing because the "First Four Generations of Ancestors in the Tree" could be interpreted in different ways. But the actual calculation is based on the number of ancestors, not the number of members. Here are the details.
For purposes of this calculation, "Four Generations of Ancestors" is counting the 15 people in your four generations: you, your 2 parents, your 4 grandparents, and your 8 great-grandparents. The percentage for you will be how many of those 15 people are in Family Tree. If you have 12 of those 15 people, you will get 80%.
When a FamilySearch account is created for a member of the Church, the system will look at the parents listed on membership records and create tree persons for any living parents, or create relationships to deceased tree persons who were members of the Church. Thus a person whose 4-gen ancestors were all members of the Church could very well get all 15 people added automatically, as soon as they create a FamilySearch account. A person whose parents (or other ancestors) are not members of the Church will have to add people to the Family Tree manually until they can connect to deceased ancestors in the Tree.
The new change is that these people in the Tree are counted only for members who have a FamilySearch account and have signed in at least once since the account was created. Previously these 4-gen trees were created behind the scenes even if the member never created an account. But now a member who has not created an account will count for 0%.
For the entire ward, the denominator of the statistic is 15 times the total number of youth and adults in the ward ("youth" starts with those who are turning 12 in this calendar year). The numerator of the statistic is the total number of these 4-generation ancestors who are in the Tree.
So suppose a ward has 100 members who are youth or adults. The denominator is 1500. Suppose that 30 of the members have full trees, 10 have trees with 11 people, and another 5 have 8 people in their trees. The calculation would be:
30 x 15 + 10 x 11 + 5 x 8 = 600, and 600/1500 = 40%
But for last year's number, suppose that there were 20 additional members who have full trees based on membership records (a total of 50 such members) but never created a FamilySearch account. Last year the calculation would have been:
50 x 15 + 10 x 11 + 5 x 8 = 900 and 900/1500 = 60%
Hopefully that helps explain how this is calculated, and what changed from 2021 to 2022.
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Thank you so much for this detailed explanation.
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Very helpful!
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In the zoom meeting it was clarified that the 4 generation statistic now only applies to those who sign into FamilySearch in the past 12 months. If they go a year without signing in, they will drop from the statistic, is my understanding.
Previously, it was an accumulated statistic.
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Can anyone tell me if the age was updated from 12 to 8 years old? I was told this today but I think this is incorrect.
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