We are excited to announce a new approach in The Family History Guide: the Beginner’s Path. You can think of it as a “smaller window” into the website, compared to the Full version. The Beginner’s Path emphasizes the things that are most helpful to those beginning family history, or even those who are new to the website.

Here’s an inside look at how the Beginner’s Path works:

Finding the Path

To access the Beginner’s Path, use the “Click here for the Beginner’s Path” link on the Home page (just below the three buttons). You can also select “For Beginners” in the Intro menu.

This takes you to the Beginner’s Home Page, as described below.

Beginner’s Home Page

Below is a sample of the Beginner’s Home Page (index-begin.html). The default focus for the menus is FamilySearch.

Notice that the top menu has fewer top-menu items, to help beginners concentrate on basic objectives. Here are the elements  for the first three menu items:

The Projects in the second menu item (Platform) have fewer Goals than in the Full version, to keep things simpler. The Goals, Choices, and Exercises all work the same way in the Beginner’s Path as they do in the Full version.

Versions

There is also a Versions menu that lets you switch the learning focus to other platforms, such as Ancestry, MyHeritage, or Findmypast. The only difference between these versions is what’s in the second menu item, which will show only Projects for the platform you selected.

You can select “Switch to Full Version” to go back to the regular Home page.

Note: In the Beginner’s Path, clicking the logo in the upper left takes you back to the Beginner’s Home page for the version you’re using. Once you are in the Beginner’s Path, the menus keep you there until you switch to the Full version.

Objectives

The main objectives for the Beginner’s Path are

• Learning about The Family History Guide
• Learning about why family history is important
• Starting and making progress with the basic Goals in a few Projects for the platform
• Enjoying family history activities

Research, including Country pages and updating shared trees such as FamilySearch, is not addressed in the Beginner’s Path. Other features The Family History Guide, such as the Online Tracker, Vault, and social media pages, are addressed in the Full version. Notice that the FAQs may span topics that are relevant to both the Beginner’s Path and the Full version.

New Site Visitors

Those who are new to The Family History Guide website may choose to use the Beginner’s Path for a while, to see a smaller set of learning choices. In any case, it’s easy to switch between the Beginner’s Path and the Full version.