Free training · Using FamilySearch · Beginner · 16 min
The Person Page, Properly
The FamilySearch person page end to end: vitals, other information, family members, sources, memories, collaboration, the change log and the timeline.
Free FamilySearch training from Stuck in the Branches: how to read a person page, check sources before trusting a date, spot wrong family attachments, use the collaborate notes and change log, clear duplicates, and catch impossible events with the timeline.
What you will learn
- Open the full person page instead of the summary card.
- Judge a date by the sources attached to it.
- Spot and detach a family member who cannot be right.
- Add a source you found somewhere else, so you never re-find it.
- Use the change log and collaborate notes instead of quietly undoing somebody.
The full written guide
Chapter 1. Welcome
Getting to the full page, not the summary card.
The Person Page Properly.
Welcome back. You have a tree with people in it. This guide is about the page behind each of those names, because almost everybody looks at the first panel, closes it, and never sees the four others that hold the actual research.
Click the Name, Not Past It.
In your tree, clicking a person opens a small summary card. On that card there is a link to the person page itself. That full page is where everything about them lives, and it is a different thing from the card. Get in the habit of going all the way through.
Chapter 2. The facts
Vitals, other information, and family members that cannot be right.
The Details You Can See at a Glance.
The first section holds their vitals: the birth, christening, death and burial, with the places. Beside each one, FamilySearch shows how many sources support it. A date with no source beside it is somebody's typing, and that is useful to know before you build on it.
Other Information Is Where the Life Is.
Below the vitals there is a section for everything else: occupation, residence, military service, immigration, religion, physical description. This is the part that turns a row of dates into a person, and it is also where a stray residence can tell you which town to search next.
Family Members, and the Ones That Are Wrong.
The family section lists parents, spouses and children, each as a link. Read it sceptically. A child with a birth year that makes their mother eleven, or a spouse married after their own death, is the clearest sign that somebody attached the wrong person, and you can detach them.
Chapter 3. The sources tab
The most useful tab on the page, and how to add your own.
The Sources Tab Is the Research.
Every record anybody has attached to this person is listed under sources, with what it was and who attached it. This is the single most useful tab on the page. If you want to know whether a person in the tree is real or wishful, read their sources before you read anything else.
Read a Source Before You Trust It.
Open a source and look at the record itself, not the summary. Check that the name, the place and the dates genuinely match your person, and check that it is not the same document attached three times under different names. One bad source gets copied by everybody who comes after.
Add a Source You Found Elsewhere.
If you found a record on another site or in a book, you can still record it here as a source with a title, a web address and a note about what it says. Do it. It is how you stop re-finding the same document, and it is how the next researcher knows you did the work.
Chapter 4. Memories and collaboration
What others uploaded, and how to talk to them.
The Memories Tab.
Memories holds the photographs, documents, stories and recordings attached to this person. It is covered properly in the next guide, but look now, because somebody may already have uploaded a photograph of your great grandmother and you would never know from the tree view.
Collaborate Is How You Talk to Strangers.
Because this is one shared tree, other people are working on your family. The collaborate section lets you leave a note explaining a change, or ask a question of whoever made one. Use it before you undo somebody's work. A sentence here prevents most of the arguments.
The Change Log Remembers Everything.
Every edit anybody has ever made to this person is recorded, with who made it and when, and you can restore what was there before. Nothing on FamilySearch is ever truly lost, which is the thing that makes the shared tree survivable. Check the log before you panic.
Chapter 5. The checks FamilySearch runs
Research help, duplicates and the timeline.
Research Help and Possible Duplicates.
FamilySearch watches each person and offers suggestions: a data problem, a record hint, or the same person appearing twice in the tree. Duplicates are worth clearing, because two half built versions of one ancestor are what stops either one from ever being finished.
The Time Line Catches the Impossible.
The timeline lays every event for that person, and their family, in order. It is the fastest way to spot the thing that cannot be true: a child born after a father died, a marriage before a tenth birthday, a residence on the wrong continent. Look at it once per ancestor.
Chapter 6. On paper
Printing it for the archive, the cemetery or a relative.
Print and Take It With You.
The person page can be printed, and so can several of the tree views, which matters when you are visiting an archive, a cemetery or a relative. Paper works in buildings with no signal, and a printed family group sheet is still the best thing to put in front of an elderly relative.
Chapter 7. Wrap up
Every tab, one ancestor.
Open every tab, on one ancestor.
Pick one ancestor you think is finished, open their person page, and work left to right through every tab. Most people find a source they never read, a duplicate, or a photograph somebody else uploaded. We are here when you get stuck.