Thursday, February 2, 2017

FamilySearch Plans for 2017

6 things to look for from FamilySearch in 2017Here are several things FamilySearch says you can look for from FamilySearch In 2017:

A customized home home. The year has hardly even started and they’ve already delivered on this one. You must sign up for a FamilySearch account (it’s free, and gets you access to other things, like more record images) and you must sign in. FamilySearch is calling it a dashboard. The content is driven by what you do in FamilySearch Family Tree. The dashboard will

  • recommend research opportunities
  • list hints about your ancestors and their close relatives
  • list recently viewed tree persons
  • provide a to-do list feature that you can use to create your own task list, and
  • show you new memories—photos, documents, stories, and audio recordings—that others have added about your ancestors.

To learn more, visit “New FamilySearch Design: Log In to Try It Out” published back in September in the FamilySearch Blog.

Improvements to the FamilySearch apps. The FamilyTree or Memories app will have the ability to launch record searching on Ancestry.com in addition to the current ability to search FamilySearch historical records. One or the other will support addition of notes in the descendency view, seeing the change log, downloading of user memories, and multiple windows.

Search Improvements. The FamilySearch.org historical records search will be faster for newly published records. Hints from those records will be available more quickly. And FamilySearch will join Ancestry in offering hints to user-contributed trees.

Web Based Indexing Tool. FamilySearch has announced that their web-based indexing tool will be released this year. (Wait a minute… What do they think this is? Ground Hog Day?!)

“We are really excited to launch the web-based version of our successful indexing software in 2017," said Craig Miller, FamilySearch's senior vice president of product development and engineering.  "It will be easy to use and will work on any digital device with a web browser (excluding cell phones), eliminating the need to download the indexing software. That means more volunteers worldwide will be able to contribute in making more of the world’s historical records searchable by name online, and more quickly.”

Improvements in 2017 include rapid completion of tasks and improved help.

FamilySearch will continue to utilize automation to index obituaries.

New Discovery Center. Within days FamilySearch is opening another Discovery Center. This one has replaced the first floor of the Family History Library. This center is four times larger than the old one in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. (See a 360 degree VR of that center on YouTube.) The same discovery experiences will be implemented in select locations worldwide in 2017. For more information, see “Family History Library Discovery Center” in the FamilySearch Wiki.

To read FamilySearch’s original posting, see “6 Things to Look for in FamilySearch in 2017” in the FamilySearch blog.

4 comments:

  1. I usually click on pulldown menus before the "dashboard" fully loads. Don't like it at all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just went to my tree and found that Family Search gave me some new relatives! They are not mine they just happen to have the same last name. Dont like this at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You should create a group on FamilySearch's new website (https://familysearch.org/indexing/my-indexing) That way you could encourage people to join that group and begin indexing as service! It could be the official / unofficial "Ancestry Insider" group

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.