FamilySearch Tree Reviews

by Mormon Max

In the rush to move tech advances, you have a failed algorithm that makes suggestions for in laws based solely on first names. This epic failure of no rules and exceptions presents everything from deceased children to siblings as in laws. Furthermore, there’s no way to dismiss the suggestion, so one click combines them to multiple people causing improper marriages and children connections. I’m sure this was to avoid the duplicate record issue which is so prevalent in your system. But a correct duplicate is a far better issue than incorrect connections that people are accidentally making on your bugged suggested system. Major programming failure here.... how many thousands of incorrect connections are in your system now? For a people so”into” record keeping, this makes no sense. Tune or turn off suggestions on in laws, or create a dismiss option to clear the bad suggestions. One accidental click creates two connections that are dead wrong. It must really eff with your temple work eh?

by Lrsurtees

To darn many people writing and adding what they think are facts which are not.
Like “Mary Ethel (Born Smith)” they said she died in Senior Bexar Texas.”
My aunt Mary Ethel (Born Surtees) her daughter told my in 1983, that Her father came home from San Antonio (which is Agee miles north east of Senior) and told the family at home near Senior. Her brother Harold (the oldest at the time) ran from the house and went to his grand mother who lived the next farm south of the Surtees farm thru the fence to Smith road where she lived. Her cried hard, he wanted comforted from grand ma Smith.
Where do these people get off making up these things.
I graduated from Brigham Young University in 1992 at which time I had a professor in genealogy whose name was Stevenson that had the bookstore right down off of the campus told us one day that he spent his Easter vacation redoing President George Washington’s temple work I don’t know how that could be possible but he said he found an air in his birth place it was a different county that had been done before. He should’ve known better but he just wanted to redo somebody famous a redo somebody’s temple work that’s already been done as far as I’m concerned they sit in the temple redoing peoples temple work because a day is wrong my place is not exactly the way they think it should be and they absolutely waste their time doing that when they could be doing it for people who need it done.

by Truly 1 American

I have enjoyed FamilySearch for many years. However; after a second husband was added to my great grandmother’s biography, my own great grandfather’s information was cast into oblivion. Even though I choose my ancestor as the preferred spouse, the results I get when searching my family tree are for the second husband and have no relationship to my own history.
Also, recently I have noticed numerous instances where a subject or his father is listed as his own spouse or child.
Information that I entered, with documentation, has some times been altered by a non-related contributor. For instance, I know when my father died. I was there.
Perhaps our freedom to edit biographies has gone too far and needs to be left to responsible professionals.
FamilySearch has provided me and many others with countless pages of family history but, I can no longer trust that it is valid. What a shame.

by Moneyman144

I’ve been using FamilySearchTree for a while. I like it but it needs to improve certain features. It can be a little confused, you can add the info from the doc you found and add it to the tree, but you can not modify the basic info once you add the info from the doc. Sometimes you found multiple sources but most of them have different info (name) and cannot be modify. In order to see and modify the name you have to create manually the person and after that add the source.
The tree doesn’t show the whole family, in order to see (my nephews) or my uncles I have to keep open the tree in that level, but I won’t be able to see the whole relationship. It cannot be download or print.
I find kind of difficult to share with my family members to allow them to add info in the family tree.
Also some doc cannot be modify but there is not an option to report or request the modification.

by Grla_99

Great for quickly viewing messages from other researchers without having to wait until I get home and boot up the full website. Also comes in handy for checking details when I’m at the library or courthouse with the hard copies and ancient micro-media (yup, we still need to use those from time to time, don’t we).

One problem I have found is an inability to see a person’s children when the parent has had more than one spouse. Although clicking on one of the spouses will normally provide a list of the children by that spouse, in the case of a divorce where BOTH spouses have married again, the tree comes to a complete dead end because you can’t see any of the children of either spouse.

It would also be nice to have the option to switch to a descendancy view from time to time, but I can live without that.

by Lazyoldhag

Have enjoyed using the web version for years and have had very few problems. I now find FamilySearchTree for my IPhone very convenient; however, navigating from tree to records search and attaching source records has been challenging! I like saving the source indexes in my my own folders and then attaching them once I'm confident they are truly a match; however, very often I'm not able to find my way back to them. Also, after a historical record search it's easy to mistakenly use the upper left back arrow and often hard to find the "back to results" arrow that sometimes appears in the lower left of the screen of the opened record screen. So I end up having to do the search completely over. I will be calling for help this week and expect I receive the same patient and thoughtful assistance as I have many times in the past.

by Ilovemy4

FamilySearchTree works well and I love the updates. However, there is a big flaw in the system. I’ve started seeing names in my close family tree, families I’ve been researching closely and know well, reserved by distant relatives and then shared with the temple. By distant I mean go back 11-15 generations and then come down a different line, then go over to a spouse and go up the spouses family tree. There are people that distantly related somehow reserving names on my direct lines making it more difficult for me to do the work. There should be a simple way for me to go to the temple and ask to do those family names. The temple should be able to pull my family names from their “temple system”. I still think it odd that someone so distantly related is working on a branch they aren’t really related to but at least it wouldn’t hinder closer family members from doing their work. This even happened with a family member’s great grandfather and they haven’t been able to do his work yet.

by TegT13

FamilySearchTree is a fantastic database for having to keep track of so many family records. There’s some minor things that would be great if they could be improved.
- Ancestor pictures: Seems like you should be able to click/tap on their picture to see an enlarged picture, but instead when you tap on their picture it takes you to the option to edit or replace their picture. I don’t want to edit, I just want to see a bigger picture of what they looked like
- Homeland discovery: I thought the homeland discovery feature was a little glitchy. It was a little difficult to pan and zoom around the map. I was using an iPhone 7 Plus. Maybe it’s smoother on other devices. This feature has a lot of potential innovation for future versions. It would be could to integrate it with google/apple maps virtual mode to see what the streets look/looked like. It would be cool to see virtually what their headstones look like. Just some thoughts.

by Hiiiiii Hiiiiiiii Hiiiii

Thank you for the improved specificity regarding search by location, which I noticed after the latest update. My 3G grandparents, born in the 1820’s, always listed their birthplace as Württemberg, (Kingdom of Württemberg), which became a Bundesland of Germany when that country unified in the late 19th century, and _eventually_ was merged with Baden, to create the Bundesland of Baden-Württemburg. Previously, I had only been able to search for them in Europe under this most recent “state” name, which made my search area only half as specific as it could have been - frustrating, as I knew for sure that the area of Baden could be eliminated, but there was no way to do so. Their name was not uncommon, so the prospect of being able to narrow the search area down by half is very welcome!

by SonofMan91

I am personally attempting to establish an accurate lineage dating back to Jesus, or to establish my lineage back to the Royal line of David. The information my family has kept and the knowledge that we do definitely descend from European royalty for many generations up until circa 1450 on my grandmothers side, and the definitive knowledge of my descent from the St John family, as well as descending from Frank royalty leads me to believe that the possibility of establishing the lineage accurately and with confirmation using written accounts of royal and noble lineage of Europe; I am hoping to be able to establish a legitimate lineage using FamilySearchTree. Any genealogist who might be interested in helping would be greatly appreciated. My family has been well respected for many many generations dating back to the times when we shared the privilege of once being of royal descent. Also English royal family members were all known to have had webbed toes; which I also have. My mother said it’s a trait from when we were one English royalty. The signs point to legitimate descent! Shall we establish a legitimate lineage back to Jesus??!

by TeachmySP

I’ve been researching family history a long time and have used the a Familysearch site for many years. FamilySearchTree continues to improve I can do nearly everything from FamilySearchTree that I can do from the site on a laptop or desktop computer and in today’s mobile device driven market that’s amazing. Family history often requires mobility to visit locations for information not found in the amazing vaults of Familysearch, bringing your research with you on a small portable device, and having the ability to add to my research, by uploading photos or documents I find and add them to my ancestors is fantastic and FamilySearchTree instantly allows me to share any and all finds with other interested people. Plus great features to entertain even the reluctant family history learner.

by DFS2004

FamilySearchTree is great but it could be even better. There are few records of my family so I have to add everything myself. This is not a problem but there are a few problems that can improve FamilySearchTree .
1. I would really like to keep my family tree so no one can see it and I really want to have complete access to everything including changing the status of a deceased person to living. Well if it’s my family tree then I have the right to do whatever I want with it.
2. There are many information you can add to a person. This part includes many useless things but not the most useful thing, Cause of Death. I really wanted to add the cause of death of my ancestors but I was forced to add a note and then write the cause of death there. I would really appreciate it if you add this option to “Add Information”. You can also add an option to add diseases so we can tract genetic diseases through our ancestors.
3. Enable an option where you can add a sibling with an unknown parent. So for example, I know my 2nd great grandmother’s sister but not the name of my 3rd great grandfather or 3rd great grandmother so I’m unable to add any siblings to my 2nd great grandmother.

by ScholarKid

I highly recommend FamilySearchTree. I have been using FamilySearch for a little over two years, and it's helped me trace my ancestry back over 2400 years. It is easy enough for a middle schooler to work- and I would know, being one! The best feature is the "find match", which allows you to enter the names and birth/death dates and places of deceased relatives and looks for names others have entered that look similar. This helps hugely if a distant relative has also been 'genealogizing' and puts their work on your screen. 80% of the time I've spent on FamilySearch Tree has been reading family history that distant relatives entered that I never knew I had! I experienced some issues when I tried to enter names of relatives in manually while in landscape mode, but after shifting it to Pedigree and entering them there everything worked fine. I love FamilySearchTree!

by CorrectOpinionMan

This is THE BEST family tree service. Just missing DNA. I took the AncestryDNA test, and I hope I can figure out how to link it to the site so I can do DNA Triangulation with my relatives who have also done AncestryDNA/23&Me. Suggestions: *Alternate name: NEEDS AN OPTION FOR PREFERRED NAME, AND MOVE THIS TO THE "VITAL" SECTION AT THE TOP OF THE PROFILE!!! *Make a list of language options for what the person spoke during their lifetime *List of religions from within the Religious Affiliation screen

Please add Hebrew and Yiddish as language options when putting what language the person's name is in.

MY REVIEW OF FAMILYSEARCH MEMORIES APP:
Doesn't show all memories. Only the most recent probably 200 or so. Also doesn't have filters to show "not tagged" or "no title" like you can do on the website. The website also needs to adopt the same circular tags and auto-face-circles as FamilySearchTree so everything stays consistent. Very Disappointed. Also people I can tag in photos in the Tree app don't show up in the Memories app, so I have to tag myself in the Memories app then reload the Memories app feed then I have to open Tree app and go to my profile then tag the CORRECT person then delete the tag I made for myself. Complete disaster. Also I can't work on profiles for living people collaboratively with my first cousins!

by Spice.of.life

I enjoy FamilySearchTree every day, by adding photos and stories of my ancestors. If one thing could be fixed about FamilySearchTree, it would be to make it easier to make corrections or even delete false information added by others about my immediate family. Someone put information in that my father had died, years before he died, and while he was yet alive, and it attached to my family tree. I corrected with a note, called the help line, followed their instructions, but now there’s two entries for my father that continue to appear. The false one and the correct one.
I know FamilySearchTree gives information how to correct it and merge, etc. but nonetheless, this incorrect records remains in my family tree data. I even kindly emailed the person (who I don’t know) who was responsible for the false information and they denied doing it, so there it is.

by Mswolffan

I have used FamilySearchTree to research my entire family and a number of friends. I have found birth and death records, copies of personal letters and wills, land deeds, land grants for military service, and, oh, the history I have learned. It’s fascinating to read about your ancestry and realize they actually fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Indian Wars, the Civil War (fighting on both sides of the war); even draft records for WWI AND WWII. Or, that your ancestors lived in Europe during the Black Death, when hundreds of thousand of people died. Or that some ancestors were members of the Order of the Knights of the Fellow-Poor Soldiers of Solomon, known as the Knights Templar! I have ancestors
from Ireland, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark , Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Doesn’t that make you think! I have actually made contact with a number of people that actually shares my DNA; cousins 1, 2, 3, even 5 times removed. What a trip! I LOVE FamilySearchTree!

by Othernicknamesalreadytaken

This is one of the only apps I’ve ever used that I can say has improved the quality of my life. Not only that, but it will improve the quality of every generation going forward. Instead of wasting my time on social media etc… I spend some of my free time writing stories from my kids lives to put into their individual profile on FamilySearchTree… and recording memories and saving pictures as well from my life and my kids lives. I also am able to record memories of my parents and grandparents as well as read stories and memories and view pictures that others have posted… in order to help me to learn more about where I came from. Makes life a lot less lonely, and a lot more like a team effort where I know there are others pulling for me and rooting for my families success behind the scenes on the other side.

by E Jo Long

I appreciate all the work that is done in connection with Family Tree. I love my ancestors and all they did in their lives that brought me to the place I am today. I love that much work was done on my lines that gave me the knowledge and joy it brought me when I joined the Church at 17. I didn’t know that my Great Great Grandparentseri Stephen and Hannah Markham were early members joining in 1834 and 1836. Hannah and my Great Grandfather David Markham, 18 years old at the time in the early 1850’s, left Utah for Northern California to join Hannah and Stephen’s older son’s Warren (Catherine Ann Jones) and William Whiting, never married. David married Emeline Conrad and raised a family , including my Grandfather, David Andrew (Alice Parks). He became Chief of Police of Willows, CA. In 1940 he was shot and killed in the line of duty. My Father Edgar Hanford Markham Sr. Met and married my mother Elberta Charlotte Abel in Willows when my mother came there to work. My father was elected Mayor of Davis in his middle 60’s. After Hannah and David came to California the Church faded from their lives.

by Don From Las Vegas

I have been collecting family tree information since 1974 but for past 20 years had taken a break and the past month refocused on completing and publishing family tree. During my hiatus the Internet happened and Family Tree leverages the new technology. After 15 minutes on the site was astonished by how comprehensive, accurate and complete the archive was. In fact on one side of family went back one generation further than I had completed. I am excited and looking forward to posting pictures of family members generation back that have been entrusted to me by my grandparents and parents. This is the archive I want to invest time to update for future generations. I have a wealth of information to share, that includes pictures, stories and historical information for my ancestors. I have invested Hundreds of hours and many trips around the USA compiling, picture taking and documenting my family’s history. Hoping the archive allows for including some additional family details.

by Snowswirl 88

I love the fan charts. My husband is a great great grandson of a LDS prophet Lorenzo Snow. It was fun to go back way, way back on that noble line! So far back- well— It is great to read the interesting things that were written about him and the occurrences happening around him. My ancestors - some of them, knew him and some of his, and they interacted with each other. I like to have the pictures of all of our ancestors as much as I can see. We will all be dead and gone one day and it will be interesting to know that we will be ( I need to put my information in) somewhat remembered too! I enjoyed the famous ones that I am related to, distantly. It’s interesting what the computer can do! However, God is no respecter of persons- we are all His children! Past, present and future! We are all important and have our time and place under the sun!

by Okieanniebuffalo1948

I like family search especially the things that I can put on. The thing I do not Like are the people who do not even know close family members to me can go in and change The data I have entered from personal sources that are reliable. These are often people I have never heard of and I have no way to get a hold of them to tell them that their information is incorrect . If I find them I just block them so that they can’t see what I do however they still change the records. And when I have asked the family history Library about this they have told me that I just needed to be kind and patient. It is hard to be patient when you are the one who has kept family history for years to have a stranger go in and base their records on the census and scrap the whole family. Yet nothing seems to be able to be done to stop these trolls. Sorry I think you could protect those of us who do a better job and make them check closer records

by Foreverfamgirl

I love FamilySearchTree. I've found so many ancestors and have discovered so much personal information about their lives. I've come to know my ancestors through FamilySearchTree. I love how it sends me hints and newly discovered ancestors in my tree without asking. FamilySearchTree keeps me on my toes always reminding me and pulling me back into my family tree through emails and reminders! Temple ordinances are so simple to prepare now because you can simply bring your phone with the barcode from FamilySearchTree and the temple will print your cards when you arrive. I've developed a new love of family history because of FamilySearchTree and a feel the spirit of Elijah in my life daily because of what FamilySearchTree does! So grateful for The Church of Jesus Christ and the advancements it's making in the field of geneology! It's amazing. No app is perfect so hence four stars! But it's getting there!

by Mybiznuss

The Family Tree app is my favorite! It allows me so much ease in doing my family history. It brings all of the information together and allows me to take it with me wherever I go so I may continually work on my family no matter where I am. The only con I can think of is at times I would like to be able to look at the documents so I can truly verify the information and see it for myself, however I can always go on my computer if I need to see the documents. I love the ease in which I can take the names to do the work for my ancestors. Thank you for creating FamilySearchTree to further the work.

by Nikki MaRee Reidhead Ellett

My mother came from pioneer family, yet she was a convert to the church. Not knowing or understanding what happened that she didn’t have the gospel in her life. As I have been able to read of family members, it has brought an understand and joy for these loved ones. My mother too has been excited to read and learn of these wonderful pioneers. Thank you for sharing. I only wish I could meet some of the family today. I am grateful they have been willing to share what they have. I love our family and am grateful they endured so many hardships for the rest of us yet to come to Earth.

by Khamdc

I love FamilySearch’s mobile Family Tree app! I’m amazed at the frequency with which I refer to my Family Tree app. We have 16 grandchildren and quite often I need info regarding birthdays and anniversary dates. FamilyTree mobile app makes it so fast & convenient for me while I’m shopping to check dates and ages.

Quite often in conversations with other family members we forget names & places of our ancestors’ stories and Family Tree helps us get it straight. It’s fun to look at our family history together and compare pictures of our children with those of our ancestors. Sharing stories from their lives always touches our hearts and brings those of us still here, closer together.

by Gramma N

Thanks to Family Search for the reminder about four ancestor’s initiatories that would expire soon. I am far away from home helping a single mother daughter with two young sons and unable to get to a temple. I called another daughter in my hometown yesterday to explain that the initiatories were printed out & in a folder on my computer desk at home. She picked them up, took them to the temple and completed the work the next day. She said both she and a sister performing the initiatory for one of our ancestors felt the person’s presence. My daughter said she since Beth Day and Simister had been waiting a long time where the ordinance. Right away Family Search sent me a message saying the work had been completed.

by Dreamwords

Family Search has made such a wonderful difference to our family. Before discovering it and learning about where we came from, we had no idea who we were! Now we know about the Cherokee in our family who fled to Wisconsin and created a village, we know about the Revolutionary War soldiers and the French-Indian War soldier and even a soldier in King Philip’s War. I even found ship records, letting me know when our Russians came to America and on which exact ship! FamilySearchTree works great; it is often being improved. My only Request: I like to leave tasks to other relatives as it’s fun to do, and also it takes much time to go through the tasks, so would like if I could also view the task list for my exact line (grandparents, not one mixed with siblings of grandparents).

by Timberprints

I love that it is searching for documents concerning my ancestors all the time and suggesting them. Then in those moments of free time when I may have previously spent minutes scanning Facebook or Instagram, I can now be attaching documents to my ancestors and search for other documents to better compile my family’s genealogy; our family history!

Being able to see the memories and photographs that others have shared is great too! It’s allowed me to see photos of my grandmother as a youth, something I hadn’t seen before.

There’s a new function under the settings menu called “Map My Ancestors” which creates a map of your ancestors’ life events. Who needs 23andMe or other DNA testing, right? Well, it’s not quite the same, but this is free!

by MishieBadger

FamilySearchTree is incredible in that I can now do virtually everything from my I-phone. From digitizing documentation in my possession to share with others to searching for ancestors and records, merging duplications, attaching sources and documentation, photos, stories and other information.
FamilySearchTree has allowed me to connect with family i didn't know existed. Most important, FamilySearchTree has allowed me the privilege of getting to know my family and ancestors and develop a deep connection and love for them as I learn of and share in their joys and and struggles in this life.
Whenever I feel alone, sad or depressed I can just open my family search app and I can feel my family cheering for me and encouraging me to keep going and never give up.

by Nick Name Taken By Me

My parents and family spent decades doing genealogy, it used to take a lot more time and dedication.

FamilySearchTree has helped bring genealogy into the 21st century and made learning personal ancestry an easily accessible, fun thing to do.

We were never sure what became of one of my great-uncles (I thought he died young) and now I know everything, thanks to military service records and census records. I feel like it’s really honoring him that we’ve got his story straight.

We’ve also been able to actually confirm stories our grandmother told us about life in their small town and we’ve been able to piece it all together, especially through historical phone books available online. I was always told that my greatgrandfather was a blacksmith so seeing his name and occupation in the phone book in the 1930s is incredible. I never even knew that existed.

You can really just jump on in, whichever branch of the family needs work done, find out your history, get ready for temple work, attach suggested documents, it’s truly amazing.

I’ve updated my review to five stars, my last review I gave three stars because FamilySearchTree kept crashing. That’s been fixed and I really appreciate it.

by Eggheadek

The tools and features of the Family Tree App communicate so effectively with the FamilySearch database and with me. I am very experienced as a genealogist and temple patron, but I continue to be amazed at how the software has advanced. As an example, my wife is visiting Hawaii with some other sisters and I equipped her with eight female family names for endowment, as I knew that they intended to go to the Laie Temple. This afternoon, I received a message from FamilyTree, listing the seven ancestors that just had their endowment done at the Laie Temple. This was very exciting and now I will review the families that are ready for the sealing ordinance, when my wife returns from Hawaii!