Spotting QUIKLinks in the Header

In the previous format for country pages, all the Goals were in the same page. While this made for some lengthy scrolling at times, it was relatively easy to find QUIKLinks to records; you’d see them as you scrolled. In the new format with one Goal per page, it became difficult to tell which Goals (and pages) had QUIKLinks—you would...

Farewell to Find-A-Record

It’s with a note of sadness that we bid a fond farewell to Find-A-Record, one the most popular and effective online tools for FamilySearch Family Tree. In Project 1: Family Tree (FS) of The Family History Guide, Goal 9 was dedicated to learning and using Find-A-Record, which helped you find data problems, research opportunities, and possible duplicates across your family...

How to Help Children Enjoy (and Benefit from) Family History Activities

In his book, The Secrets of a Happy Family (quoted here), Bruce Feiler records a conversation he had with Marshall Duke, a professor at Emory University who researched American families. According to Professor Duke, “The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger the sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem, and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.” Isn’t...

Setting Up for Success

Note: Most of this article was published previously in our Trainers, Consultants, and Directors Facebook page. It is republished here due to the increased interest it has generated for trainers and learners. When we teach traditional family history computer classes, we typically set up the class with a presentation screen at the front and rows of computers filling the rest...

Update: Tracker Links and County Links

We’ve recently added a number of useful links to The Family history Guide, in two categories: Word Tracker sheets County resources for U.S. state pages Word Trackers The Word Tracker sheets list all the Goals and Choices for each Project in The Family History Guide. We have added links to each Goal title in the Trackers, so you can go...

How Will You Write Your Own Story?

As you consider how to write your own story, you might find just find the help and encouragement you need in the blog post 18 Writing Tips …How To Tell Personal and Family Stories With Confidence. The author explains  that “no one is more qualified” to tell your story than you are and shares the following example:  Seventeen years after my Grandpa Bob passed away,...

Updates to the Home Page and Get Started Page

We’ve introduced a few changes to the Home page and Get Started page recently. The goal is to simplify the flow a bit, especially for those who are new to the website. The Home page has fewer links overall, and the Get Started page focuses on four main areas, with a link to additional tasks to do. For all pages,...

Our First Year of Blogging

It’s hard to believe, but our blog site has already had its first birthday! We have thoroughly enjoyed  bringing new posts to you each week, and we look forward to a prosperous second year of blogging. Looking back at our first year, we have included a few miscellaneous stats and a few favorites selected by our Management Team. If you...

Announcing RootsTech London 2019

The World’s Largest Family History Conference Is Coming to London! Rootstech made an exciting announcement almost exactly one month ago and (in case you missed it) you are invited to experience three days of discovery in an event set up to be similar to RootsTech in Salt Lake City. This event will include more than 150 hands-on lectures on topics such...

The Family History Guide: A Comparative Look

People sometimes ask us, “What’s the difference between The Family History Guide and FamilySearch (or Ancestry, or MyHeritage, etc.)?” The short answer: we are a learning and resource system. But there’s more to the picture … our success depends in part on on the success of other family history and genealogy companies. You could say that we’re into “co-opetition” rather...