When you access The Family History Guide website, you’ll see a new look—it’s simpler and more colorful. Here’s a summary of the changes we’ve made to some key pages of the website, and why …

Home Page: What’s Different

• Previously we had a group of four large tiles in the upper-right area of the Home page. The links from these tiles can now be accessed in the new Get Started page (see below) and in the top menu.
• There is now a single background graphic for the top of the home page. This graphic will be switched every few weeks for variety. (Note that the content below the graphic has the same design as before.)
• Because of the simpler design of the new Home page, more attention is focused on the three buttons: Overview video (which now has closed captioning, Get Started, and 15 Minutes a Day.

Here’s a partial view of the Home page (9/23/2019):

Get Started: A New Approach

We want to make it even easier for people to get started doing family history with The Family History Guide. So we’ve redesigned the Get Started page with a new tile layout, so you can quickly choose a category and item that interest you, and then learn more about it in The Family History Guide.

Here are the categories in the Get Started page:

• About The Family History Guide
• FamilySearch
• Memories
• Activities
• Research
• Social Media
• Ancestry
• MyHeritage
• Findmypast

Here’s a screen shot of a few of the categories. You’ll notice that there is a brief “More” section at the end of each category, where you can explore additional topics.

15 Minutes a Day

Previously, this page had a long list of activity items you could work on for 15 minutes (or more) at a time. These activity items, for the most part, have been moved to the Get Started page. The new 15 Minutes a Day page has a section called “15 Minute Magic” with tips on making meaningful progress with your family in as little as 15 minutes a day. The “Fitting Family History into Your Life” section has links to helpful articles and videos to help you recognize and find opportunities for doing family history in a busy or hectic life. And the “Quick Family History Activities” shows you how to find that perfectly fun activity that’s ready to go with little or no preparation.

Bookmarks and Redirects

The old Get Started page was quick-start.html, and now it’s get-started.html. Also, the old 15 Minute link went to more-to-do.html, and now it goes to 15-minutes.html. If you have bookmarked the old pages, not to worry: we have provided redirects for them, which means that when you click the previous links they will automatically open the new pages instead.

We hope you enjoy the new look and content for the Home page, Get Started page, and 15 Minutes page. Give them a try and see what you think!