Record Hinting is Greatly Improved!

Palm Trees in Long Beach, California

I hope we have all enjoyed our break over the last two weeks.  Celebrating Christmas was wonderful for us this year and I hope that whatever you have celebrated has been good for you as well.  I am dedicating today to getting caught up on my reading.  One thing I have learned is that daily checking is better than waiting two weeks and then trying to catch up.  But breaks are healthy and good and hopefully we return with more energy and enthusiasm!  It feels good to be back in the saddle again.

My go to place first is Family Search Blog.  Located on the bottom  of the Home Page of familysearch.org you'll find a tiny link to the recent  blog posts. From there I search for new changes and improvements to FamilyTree and the site in general.  There is a lot there I am going to include this post from today here for your convenience but I cannot include everything so please go and browse through the recent articles!  Only you know what you need to learn, so check it out.  This post is by Robert Kehrer on January 5, 2015

On Tuesday, December 23rd FamilySearch released a new update of the hinting data viewable on an ancestor’s detail page and in the descendancy view in the Family Tree. In this data update newly added or changed persons in the Family Tree have been hinted using all the newly available information. It also includes important new record sets, such as the Find-A-Grave collection, that have been recently published. Additionally, engineers and architects have made numerous advancements in the software algorithms which makes it possible for more than 14 million new hints to be identified. Users of the Family Tree may wish to visit their ancestor pages again and see if any new hints are displayed.

We are as excited as our users are about the accuracy and efficiency that these new tools provide, both to the task of doing research, as well as the quality of the information found in the Family Tree. In the days since this data release, users have set new daily highs in the number of sources they have attached to the Family Tree and the number of new persons added to the tree from historical records. With the vast number of daily additions to the Family Tree tied to historical documents, the Family Tree is becoming one of the largest and most accurate genealogical trees in the world.

These new tools enable many new people to become engaged in Family History work. We invite all who have used the new tools and hints to share their skills and love of this work with other friends and family members so that we can help accelerate this great work.

Public Preview Release

On June 17th, 2014, FamilySearch released a public preview of the record hinting feature. With this new feature, users can view the details page of any ancestor in the family tree and see suggested records that have a high confidence of being applicable to that specific ancestor. These hints are identified by comparing the ancestor’s vital information, relatives and the relative’s vital information against all the historical records published on FamilySearch database.

During the public preview phase, significant enhancements will continue to be made to the quality and capability of the hinting software. An update system is also being built to provide new hints more quickly. The hints data will continue to be updated as new records become available (more or less on a monthly basis). That means that as new people are added to the tree, they may not show record hints until the next data update. When the update system is complete, new hints will be generated anytime a tree person is added or significantly changed.

Hints that Mention your Ancestor

Genealogical researchers recognize that the first step in understanding an ancestor is to gather as many records about their life as possible. Many of the records that position the ancestor in a place, time and relationships may not be about the ancestor, but about their family members. For example, an ancestor may be listed as the mother on her daughter’s birth certificate. FamilySearch record hints include records that mention your ancestors, in addition to those that are about you ancestor. When a user attaches a record to their tree, they are affirming to Family Tree that the person in the record is the same as the person they are attaching the record to in the tree. The updated hinting data will make it easier for researchers to use valid sources to document the conclusions they make.

How to Use Record Hinting

This Post if from The Family Search Blog!

Here’s a list of Record Hints for Olive Benedict Livermore. (Livermore was her married surname.

These indexed records include Olive’s name and match her information in Family Tree. To see a record, you click Olive’s name above the record.

Where to Find Record Hints

You can access Record Hints from two places in Family Tree: In the Descendancy view on the right of the person’s name or on the person’s Details page on the right side. To see the list of Record Hints in the Descendancy view, click the Record Hintsicon.

Record Hints Icon on the Descendancy View

Record Hints Section on the Details Page

  

How to Use Record Hints

The Descendancy view is the quickest way to see which ancestors have Record Hints. When you put an ancestor in the main position in the Descendancy view, you can easily display all of the ancestor’s descendants who are in Family Tree. Then scroll down the screen looking for Record Hints icons.

1. Go to the Descendancy view. (On the pedigree, in the upper left corner, on the View button, click the down arrow, and click Descendancy.) By default, you appear as the person in the main position.

2.  Move an ancestor to the main position. Use one of these three ways:

• If the person is already displayed on the screen, click the name. On the summary card, click Tree.
• Click the Expand link above the person who is currently on the main position. A small pedigree appears. If the person you want is on the screen, click the Select button under the person’s name. To choose an ancestor even more generations back, repeat the process (click the Expand link, and click the Select button for the ancestor).
• On another view, find the person, put him or her in the main position, and then click the Descendancy view. (To put the ancestor in the main position in the other view, click the name, and on the summary card, click Tree.)

3.  To see the Record Hints icons for all of the ancestor’s descendants, scroll down the page. Click all of the arrows that point to the right (>). This displays all the spouses and children and their Record Hints icons.

4.  Click a Record Hints icon.

The system displays a list of records that match the information for your ancestor.

5. Review the records for the person.

• To review one record at a time, click your ancestor’s name above the record.

To see more information about all the records, click Show All at the bottom of the list of records.

The information from Family Tree is at the top of the screen. The other Information is from the indexed records. If the information in the indexed record matches your ancestor, click the Review button on the right side.

6. Compare the information in the indexed record with the information in Family Tree.

On the left, you will see the person in the indexed record and on the right, the person in Family Tree. If the indexed record has extra information that isn’t in Family Tree, you will see a + Add link after the information.

 If the indexed record matches the person you are looking for, attach the record:

7. To add the new information to Family Tree, click + Add.
8. In Reason to Attach Source, add the reason you feel this is a record for the person in Family Tree.
9. To add the source to your source box, click Add Source to Source Box. The system adds a check mark and adds the source to your source box.
10. Click the Attach button. The system attaches the record to the person in the tree.
11. If the indexed record does not match the person you were looking for, click the Not a Match button.

Attach the Source to the Other People in the Record

Once you attach the source to the original person you looked for, the attach links for the other people in the indexed record are displayed.

• An Attach link means the system found a possible match in Family Tree.
• An Add link means the system didn’t find the person in Family Tree. (Click Add to add the person to Family Tree. Details will be given in “Add a Person to Family Tree” in What’s New on FamilySearch, June 23, 2014.)
• A Detach link means the record is already added as a source to the person in Family Tree.

1. To attach the source to the person in Family Tree, click the Attach link.

On the left, you see the person in the indexed record, and on the right, the person in Family Tree. If the indexed record has extra information that isn’t in Family Tree, you will see a + Add link after the information. The reason statement you already created appears in the reason box.

2. To add the new information to Family Tree, click + Add.
3. If you want, change the reason statement.
4. To add the source to your source box, make sure there is a check mark by Add Source to Source Box.
5. Click the Attach button.
6. If there are more Attach links, click each link to add the source to those people in Family Tree.

Congratulations! With one icon, one sentence, and a few clicks, you’ve found a record for your ancestors and added it to their sources in Family Tree.

Ron Tanner | June 23, 2014 at 6:05 am | Tags: exclude | Categories: Consultants | URL:http://wp.me/p3q0yN-57K

Ron Tanner Speaks Out On Record Hinting

A ray of sunlight has been added to your tree!

Hinting is Here: We Search for You by Ron Tanner FamilySearch has just released a powerful new hinting feature that actually searches our vast record collection for you! We look at your records in FamilySearch Family Tree, compare it to information from our indexed records, and bring back the most likely matches. Our goal is that, on average, 95% of the records we suggest to users will be correct matches (keep in mind that this won’t be true on every person in the tree). After a user reviews a hint, they will be able to attach it to FamilySearch Family Tree and, using the enhanced match functionality, we will help them compare and attach it to other people in the tree. This process will provide documented information to qualify existing people in the tree for temple work and it will also help add new people to the tree who need temple ordinances. As someone with a family history calling, you will no doubt be asked about this new feature so we wanted to introduce it to you. However, we are rolling this out to general members through an email marketing campaign inviting less-experienced users to use the hinting feature first. For an experienced genealogist they could use this feature to pick their family tree clean in a matter of hours. That is why we would like to encourage you and any family history buffs to use this tool as an opportunity to teach family, ward members, and friends the joys of this great work, and help them find and submit names to the temple! Here are what early users are saying about hinting: All I have to say is “WOW” !!!!!!! When the Lord does something, He does it BIG. As I sit here at my computer tonight, my room feels full of my ancestors and the excitement they are feeling has me in tears. I am a convert of 58 years as of last Feb. 5th, 2014, and have been working on family history all of these years. I can’t thank you enough, our wonderful Family History Team, for what you are doing to make this wonderful and important work go faster. How blessed I feel to be a member of this the Lord’s True Church and to be a part of this work. With much love. - K Taylor I think the “hinting” is awesome. I have tried several of my ancestors and found information that I did not have before. You guys are terrific. Keep up the good work. You are updating and developing new stuff almost faster than we can learn them. - G. Flanagan Thanks for letting me participate in the hints beta. It proved invaluable to me in the first few minutes. I’ve been looking in the Massachusetts Birth records for my dad’s birth record and haven’t been able to find it. It showed up in the hints and I could see that his last name was spelled Ostman instead of Eastman. Evidently my grandparents hadn’t yet changed the spelling of their name from the Swedish (Ost with the 2 dots over the O means East in Swedish) and I didn’t think to look for that spelling. Thanks very much for this wonderful tool! - E. Eastman Fantastic - I found my parents’ marriage certificate that I have been searching many years for! - P. Palmer. To help others use this feature log in to FamilySearch.org and go to an ancestor page. The Record Hints box is on the top right side of the page! So, help others try hinting today!