Tag Archives: familysearch

FamilySearch Adds New Map and Time Line Features

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FamilySearch recently launched a events details feature that allows you to see contextually the history of your ancestor in new ways.

The new features include a Time Line that includes historical events (if enabled), along with the details of your ancestor’s life.

Howard West Sr FamilySearch Timeline feature

It also features a map option that you may switch on that adds pins to a map of the life events of your ancestor along with where historical events near the area and time frame were located.

Howard West Sr FamilySearch Timeline feature

Any time you can view your family’s history in a few perspective, fresh discoveries are likely to be found. Play with it. There is room for improvement, but it’s a start in the right direction. Let me know what you think.

All Ellis Island Passenger Records Now Online Free

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FamilySearch announced that Ellis Island Immigrant Records 1820-1957 are now online and free to access on FamilySearch.

Check out the “Great Wave” of immigration (1880s–early 1920s) among the complete collection of Ellis Island passenger lists.

According to the announcement:

Ship passenger lists can teach you more than you might think about your traveling ancestors. Earlier records may include a full name, age, gender, occupation, nationality, intended destination (country), name of ship and date of arrival. Later records may also name traveling companions and relatives “back home” or in the United States. You may also learn a relative’s marital status, physical description, last permanent residence, or birthplace. Any of these details can help you build your family tree and connect with your immigrant ancestors.

Personally, I’ve found surprising information tucked into passenger logs and immigration records on my own ancestors.

The collection includes:

The records of Ellis Island (and Castle Rock) were originally preserved on microfilm, a technology FamilySearch and others are quickly digitizing with the help of many FamilySearch volunteers. The announcement of the joint project between Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation and FamilySearch noted that it took 165,590 online FamilySearch volunteers to convert and transcribe the 9.3 million images of records totaling 63.7 million names, “including immigrants, crew, and other passengers traveling to and from the United States through the nation’s largest port of entry.”

Luckily for us, all of these records are free to access through FamilySearchch, though registration to log into FamilySearch is required.

Tech Tools: Grandma’s Pie Chart

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FamilySearch continues to offer and support a wide range of free and affordable genealogy apps. A simple but fun app is Grandma’s Pie, developed in BYU’s Family History Technology Lab and released in 2015. It is free, but does require FamilySearch account. You may upload a GEDCOM file or use your FamilySearch tree.

Grandma’s Pie is a novel name for the app that allows you to view your FamilySearch tree using various pie chart visuals. Also known as Pedigree Pie, the app requires you to authorize access to your FamilySearch account.

It begins by default with you and the geographic birth places of your grandparents, following a direct line up. As clear in my own tree, which is not as complete as it should be in FamilySearch, the majority of my recorded ancestors to 6x grandparents were born in the United States (83%).

Apps - Grandmas Pedigree Pie - FamilySearch Apps - Grandparents Generational View

You may change the starting person by using their FamilySearch Person ID number.

Switching to my favorite brickwall, Lula Bell Pinder, Grandma’s Pie chart shows her parentage as mostly Canada West. If I turn off “Extrapolate Unknowns,” as there are many, I see the gaps in my research on her part of the tree, mostly due to the brickwalls I’ve encountered.

Apps - Grandmas Pedigree Pie - FamilySearch Apps - Lula Bell Pinder - Grandparents Generational View

Click on one of the colored pie pieces to see who they represent. In this example, Lula Bell’s mother, Elizabeth Brunner is highlighted, helping you to see where people are on the chart and see who is missing.

Apps - Grandmas Pedigree Pie - FamilySearch Apps - Lula Bell Pinder mother Elizabeth Brunner - Grandparents Generational View

You then have the option to view that person in another pie chart or to visit their profile page on FamilySearch.

In an article on Grandma’s Pie by Jill R. Decker, the app shows countries up to seven generations. By turning the Extrapolating Unknowns, as I did above, it is easy to see where ancestors are and aren’t identified, and work needs to continue.

The app doesn’t do much else, and many online services offer such pie chart views with DNA results and other charting services, but FamilySearch doesn’t offer these. This app adds the fun visual functionality.

Whether to help you find the missing pieces of your genealogy research on FamilySearch or in a GEDCOM file exported from your genealogy program, or to provide a visual for friends and family or your website or social media, Grandma’s Pie is a fun additional to your tech toolbox.

Check out the other interesting and handy web apps and tools on FamilySearch.