Minimum Family History or Familysearch Skills for T&FHCs
I am a stake T&FHC. I train other ward T&FHC's including the ward T&FHC Leaders. A couple of my newer ward T&FHC Leaders have asked if I would prepare a list of what I consider to be the minimum needed Family History/Familysearch skills for a T&FHC to know. I have been hesitant to do so, but have two questions:
1) What do you think of their request?
2) Have any of you made such a list that they could share with me? My email is bob-lathen@q.com.
Thanks!!
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@robertleelathen1 I too serve as a stake temple and family history consultant and have gotten similar requests. Obviously, there can be many different opinions on what the response should be. My response has been to refer the unit leaders to the information about the callings in the Handbook and the Church website:
Understanding what we expect can help those who recommend and call new unit consultants as they ponder and pray about callings. I also like to point out that few of us have already known all we need when we are first called to a new calling. The Lord often asks us to stretch in new ways. A member who is willing to serve, willing to learn, communicates well, and has a reasonable degree of computer literacy will do what it takes to learn to serve as a consultant in a manner pleasing unto the Lord.
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The Robert Givens video for New Consultants is something I would recommend. It has some references to what qualities are beneficial and what is expected of the consultants. I use it in my training for ward TFH callings.
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Thanks N and thanks Carol! The questions posed to me were not necessarily related to only newly called consultants, but more for what specific Family History /Familysearch skills should they have or eventually learn? For example, would we expect a consultant to be able to: help a new patron get a Familysearch account, use Ordinances Ready, navigate a familysearch person page, use the four types of trees to discover missing ancestors and to reserve/print needed temple work, add a missing spouse or child, merge, add sources, discover new sources, use ancestry, add photos, add recordings, use the FS catalog, use the FS Wiki, discover missing ancestors that have indexed records, find ancestors who have sources that have not yet been indexed, use the Planner to invite new patrons, Use the Planner to develop written FH Experiences for a patron, etc. The ones asking the questions were wanting me to develop a specific list of Family History/Familysearch skills that consultants should either already know (rarely the case for new consultants) or if they don't already know that they should learn.
In my mind, some in the short list above are critical and some are not for a consultant to learn enough to then assist others. It is a list of the critical FH/FS skills that those asking the questions were hoping I could develop and that I was hoping someone in this community may have already done.
For Carol, there are tons of videos, would you mind sending me the link to the specific Robert Givens video you that you mentioned (my email is bob-lathen@q.com).
Thanks again to both of you!
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Hi again Robert,
I see what you mean. Sorry, I assumed that any consultant would go to the training material on FamilySearch and get going on his/her own. Magnify my calling and such. There is an abundance of material and we can't learn everything, but hopefully we can take advantage of what is out there. Have you checked out TheFHGuide? They have step by step lessons that would take anyone carefully through a lot of the areas you mentioned.
Here is the link to the video I referred to.
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Below is something used in one ward to help newly called consultants and ensure a baseline capability. It is not all-inclusive. The TFH leader works with the new consultants, or another experienced consultant could be asked to help them.
Michael
Consultant Skills Toolbox
· How to help someone set up FS account
· How to enter people in tree
a. living
b. deceased
· Recognizing icons and how to use them
a. blue record hint icons
b. green ordinance available icons
c. exclamation points
d. other hints (possible missing children, possible duplicates, etc.)
· What to do with people needing ordinances
a. reserve/unreserve names
b. share names
c. requesting names
d. print cards
e. take ordinances ready names or FOR to temple
· Working with records
a. editing records
b. attaching/detaching sources
c. finding/recognizing duplicates
d. merging/unmerging records
e. collaborating with other contributors
· Using different views
a. descendancy
b. fan
c. pedigree
· Performing searches
a. limiting locations
b. setting/adding parameters
c. catalog and unindexed records
· Using other tools
a. partners
b. applications
25. Temple and Family History Work in the Ward and Stake (churchofjesuschrist.org)
Temple and Family History Leadership Instruction • RootsTech Connect 2021 • FamilySearch
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I am a relatively new family history center director. It would be great to have similar skill lists for family history center staff.
Incidentally, I've been very impressed with online training developed during our Covid months by local and regional family history centers and FamilySearch Libraries, like:
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Jerry, as you indicated, there is a great deal of material available online - if anything, so much that one can be overwhelmed! Whether serving in a FHC or as a ward consultant, the volunteer's goal is to help people discover, gather, and connect their family members. In the FHC, there seems to be a a much wider experience and needs level. Some patrons are very experienced and just want access to portal resources, while some want to know how to get started, and others are in between. That list was developed based on consultants' experience helping others, so it would be applicable to all. However, it is not all inclusive and can certainly be added to, based on different FHC experiences. We use it as baseline training for newly called consultants.
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@JerryKern You might be interested in this help center article about staff training in a family history center. It provides a good list of topics to cover and a link to the Help Resources on FamliySearch that can be useful during training: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/staff-training-in-a-family-history-center
(You'll need to be signed in to FamilySearch.org with your Church member account to be able to access the article)
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