FindARecord.com

This is a great website if you only have a few minutes to do some family history. I love the color coding that goes along with it. It also syncs to your family tree on www.familysearch.org. Let's take a look at this great site that allows you to do some work on your genealogy in three minutes time!

FindARecord.com homepage

Click on the orange button and sign in with your FamilySearch account. It will send you to the FamilySearch sign in page to log you in to your tree.

Main page after log in

 The start person will automatically be you if you are the "start" of your tree on FamilySearch.

Who do you want to find has many options:
Ancestors searches for parents, grandparents and all great-grandparents
Descendants searches for children, grandchildren and great grandchildren
Ancestors and Descendants searches for the categories for Ancestors and Descendants
Cousins searches for Ancestors, Descendants as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, and all great-aunts, great-uncles and their children
Everyone searches for parents, grandparents, all great-grandparents, children, grandchildren, all great-grandchildren, aunts, uncles, all great-aunts, great-uncles, nieces and nephews, father-in-laws, mother-in-laws, sister-in-laws, brother-in-laws, and anyone else connected to your tree through blood or marriage.

💎GENEALOGY GEM: I generally start with ancestors and then work my way down as I clean up my tree.

Generation selection

 Generation selection allows you to choose how far back in your tree you want to search.

✍TAKE NOTE: If you feel overwhelmed then start with 1 generation and as you become more comfortable you can move up the numbers of generations you are viewing.

Now comes the fun part if you like organization and color coding as much as I do! Each field to work on is color coded on this website. We are going to look at each one in order. You can select one or two of the items to work on or all of them! That is one of the features I love about this website. You can pick one area to focus on and clean up your tree from there.

Sources selection box

Sources are very important in research for genealogy. This creates a trail and allows others to see where you found the information that you are documenting. FamilySearch is great at adding in record hints. If someone in your tree is missing a birth, marriage or death date/record or if FamilySearch has found a record hint - this is where it will show up! By selecting just sources you will only see the people in your tree that need this information or have a record hint mentioning them. Again, start small if you feel overwhelmed and work backwards! Start with death records and see what information you can collect to help you make sure you have the right marriage record, birth record, etc.

💎GENEALOGY GEM: Remember that genealogy works backwards so if you want to start small, only select death records and then move back to marriage records and then to birth. One step at a time to build your tree and follow your ancestors trail through life.

Person selects information on each individual

Person allows you to break down the person into details for each life event. This gives you a bigger pond to fish in but more specifically focused on each life event. It allows the person searching to start big and break down each event into smaller categories.

✍TAKE NOTE: Always start with the most recent life event (death) to find out what information you can use to help find clues and fill in gaps regarding the person you are researching.

Relationship helps clean up multiples and missing people

Relationship helps to identify possible problems in your tree such as multiple parents, missing parent(s), possible missing children and similar issues.

✍TAKE NOTE: some relationships didn't have children or may have had children that passed away at a young age and in between census records. Some spouses died in between census records so pay close attention to spouse names and ages - if things don't quite calculate right or suddenly the name changes, take a closer look to find any possible gaps.

Problems appear with a triangle an ! inside

 Problems "red flag" problems with dates or possible duplicates. If a child was born out of wedlock and then the parents married, it will be marked as a "problem." If dates were not put in correctly or transposed, it will be marked. If a father died before a child was born, it will flag. Some issues are a simple fix, others may need some research. Don't just change a date to fix it. Take a few minutes to find a record to support the information or verify the date. (See Sources)

💎GENEALOGY GEM: Some men died before their children were born, i.e. their wife was pregnant and then they died. If this occurred and a father died in 1845 and the child was born in early 1846, it will be flagged. Just make a note of the situation and move on.

Clean up helps make the person "complete"

Cleanup helps to do just that - cleanup a persons file in Family Tree. Each person needs one name, one marriage per spouse, character free names, etc. I refer to these people as "complete." Each place should, ideally, have a city/town, county, state and country. Dates are listed in DD MM YYYY format.

✍TAKE NOTE: A date or place may be "correct" but listed as needing a "standardized date/place". Simply back space one space and retype the number or letter you erased. Select the date or place from the drop down menu provided by FamilySearch. It will become highlighted in green and say "standardized place/date selected".

LDS Ordinances can be searched for and reserved

Ordinances can also be searched for with this website. You can select certain ordinances by checking the boxes next to the desired option(s).

✍TAKE NOTE: Before you print up any ordinances, always check for duplicates to make sure you are not repeating anything that may have already been completed.

In 3 minutes time you can standardize a place or date for a family member, merge duplicates, find a birth/marriage/death record, confirm a hint or add a source. Just like that! Have a few minutes? Go now to Find-A-Record and get started.