On July 6, we presented a BYU Webinar: “What’s New in The Family History Guide – July 2018”. We present these “What’s New” webinars every three to four months, to keep everyone up-to-date with the latest developments in The Family History Guide.

The webinar goes through a list of 20 additions and updates made to the website over the last 3 to 4 months. These are described in the What’s New List below, and you can view the webinar by clicking this picture:

What’s New List

1. Update to the Quick Tour video—The video content shows the current menus and home page for the site.
2. Embedded videos, Home page—YouTube videos are embedded so they can be viewed without leaving the Home Page. They can also be expanded or viewed on the YouTube Channel.
3. Home page tile videos, Overview & Activities—Two new tile videos, Overview and Activities, are added to the Home page; they are also available on the YouTube Channel.
4. New Show-Me video for Projects—”Show-Me #1: Inside the Projects” is the first in a series of short YouTube videos that walk through various features of The Family History Guide. You’ll see the link on the Home page and in the top Goals list of Project 1: FamilySearch Family Tree.
5. New YouTube videos—We’ve added a number of cool videos to our YouTube Channel; be sure to check them out.
6. 800 new links to articles and videos—Our BYU Intern, Rachel Carter, assisted in bringing many new and helpful links into The Family History Guide. These have been placed in a number of main website pages and in the Vault.
7. Info Tips for articles in Country pages—Next to the links for certain articles are Info buttons: hover over them to see links you can preview that take you directly to topics of interest in the article. See an example here.
8. 250 QUIKLinks, FS and Ancestry—We’ve lowered the threshold from 100,000 records to 50,000 records for QUIKLinks, so that means more QUIKLinks for The Family History Guide, in country and state pages.
9. “More” links at the end of QUIKLinks—Clicking a “More” link takes you to an article with additional information about the record collection pointed to by a QUIKLink.
10. 40 new Learning Center videos—FamilySearch added about 40 new videos to their Learning Center, mostly around country research, so we have added links to them.
11. Trainers section re-design—The Trainers menu now has additional links, such as to the Course Catalog, the Regional Trainers Program (see below) and the various types of audiences for training.
12. 28 new Instructor Guides in the Course Catalog—Instructor Guides are similar in appearance to the Word Trackers: they have the Goals and Choices listed, but they also have a space for Instructor Tips for the Project, either provided by The Family History Guide Association or the trainer.
13. Regional Trainers Program—A new section has been added to the website to explain and promote the work of Regional Trainers. They act as training liaisons for assigned geographical areas in the world.
14. Overview Quiz for trainers—Although this quiz is primarily intended for new trainers to help them present The Family History Guide effectively, it can also be useful for anyone wishing to check overall, high-level knowledge of the website. It’s available in the Quizzes page.
15. New photos, entries, videos, Family Activities—The Family Activities page has been updated with more photos, new activities, and several new videos for your enjoyment.
16. Faiths drop-down menu—Previously there was an “LDS” menu item; now there is a “Faiths” drop-down menu in its place, which has entries for LDS, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish.
17. Computer Basics uses Goals and Choices—The Computer Basics section now uses Goals and Choices to organize learning activities.
18. Site Map: new content, better layout—The Site Map page is updated and improved.
19. Project 7: DNA for Ancestry, Goals 4 and 5—Goal 4 has information on DNA Matching for Ancestry DNA tests, and Goal 5 describes Ancestry DNA Circles.
20. Vault links in Country page headers—Some Country pages now have direct links to Vault content in the header are, next to the Tracker links. See an example here.

Enjoy the new features of The Family History Guide! More are on the way every month: be sure to check the site often for the latest happenings.