Are you getting the most out of using sources over
on the FamilySearch Family Tree platform?
Probably not, now we as genealogists know the importance of having quality
sources attached to our relatives. But are we making sure that we're
attaching all of the names that are on records
we find to the FamilySearch Family Tree. Welcome
to Family History Fanatics especially you newbies go ahead and put hashtag
newbie in the comments section and let us know that this is your first time
watching I am Devon Noel Lee and this is Family
History Fanatics where we help you understand your DNA so you
can climb your family tree, and write your ancestor stories along
the way. I hope that you will get a copy of the
Five Simple Steps to starting Family History, which is a free guide
found in the description below if you're just starting out, but
let's talk about FamilySearch and finishing
attaching sources as a FamilySearch Family Tree.
Now one of the biggest mistakes that I have encountered when I've worked with
newbie genealogists is they find a source and they attach it to their
direct ancestor and that's it when I went
around cleaning up family trees you'll be able to find out more about cleaning
up your family tree in this video check the link in the description to
find it. But when I talk to individuals about
cleaning up the family tree I would often find a lot of
instances where they didn't finish attaching sources, here's an example
right here. We have John Townley and it says
unfinished attachments, that's what i'm talking about
FamilySearch has now started rolling out this really cool reminder to say, hey
did you get everybody that is listed on a record
attached to your family tree? So i'm over here in the sort
section on FamilySearch and i'm going to scroll down until i see that notice
that notice it says unfinished attachments
and it's for a death record and or burial record.
So let's go ahead and see what do you mean I haven't finished the attachments?
So what you see here is that the source is linked from John Townely
in the record and the FamilySearch Family Tree
my version of John Townley, but there was a father named on this record
and I don't have it attached to this person in the FamilySearch Family Tree.
So it behooves us to go and look at the actual record to see, how did I miss that
information? So we're gonna zoom in and then we find
John Townley and if we look at the column headlands
we will be able to see what all these fields are but there's the name
Effingham in the father's field and so we should be able to link it to
the tree, but what often happens is either
you didn't know that Effingham this Effingham was part of your family when
you first attached this record to the Family
Search Family Tree, it could also mean that someone didn't
finish attaching the source they just stopped
with attaching it to John Townley. Now John Townley is featured in my brick
wall series, you want to check the description for
the beginning of that series, but I did find that this Effingham is indeed
this Effingham so I can go ahead and finish
adding the information. I will always want to have a reason statement
check out this blog both posts for some tips on how to write good reason
statement. But i'm going to go ahead and do that now.
So once i'm finished creating a reason statement I click OK and now
I go back to the source hit refresh and that is going to be resolved.
Now there are other times when there are unfinished attachments and I think to
myself. "What the heck is going on I know I attached it?" If I
come to Effa A Brown I see that I attached this record in
2013 and it has unfinished attachments and there are a number of them as I
scroll down this page. So i'm going to go to the first one and
see what's going on. Marriage record unfinished attachments
and notice even though the source is showing up
in the storage spot it's not green it's not connecting.
So in 2013 a number of these records didn't have the images to them
or FamilySearch has updated their databases since then.
So they just want us to go and double check our work.
So I can go ahead and do that you always want to check the image
and go through the process. Now after I write that reason statement and attach
then I can move on to Leo Chase the spouse
and I don't have to write that reason statement again which is really
nice. However I already have this marriage
record information in here. So don't add duplicate information in!
This is where a lot of people go wrong and then you have to watch that
video on how to clean up the marriage information and make it go away.
So don't add this information if you can already see that it's right there
and then just click attached and move on. And now
you have finished attaching that record hit refresh and you can move on to the
next entry. So here's a case where I did
everything I could to go ahead and attach this record or
another researcher did, I can't just always say it's me, but in
this case the mother of the bride is not linked.
The first thing i need to do is change to Albert
and then i'm going to change to his wife and then it switches and now we have an
Anna and Emma. Now you need to go through and
make sure that the Anna is indeed Emma's or see if Frank has another
spouse or another female that he created a child with before you
go and connect. This is something I often find
in FamilySearch with the unfinished attachments i went through and I
found Effie and Leo and their child children they had a
lodger while they were living in the 1920s and recorded in the census record.
So what do you do then? Well it depends if you
want to go ahead and start researching Alvan Reed
then you're going to have to try to figure out if Alvan Reed is already in
the FamilySearch Family Tree and link this record to them or if
they're not in the FamilySearch Family Tree then you're gonna have to create a
new profile for them and start researching them or you're just gonna
have to ignore it. Now if this is a marriage record and
it's the name of the minister which often
shows up maybe you don't want to research the minister
let's just kind of leave it there um if it's a Lodger
they could be a relative or people actually boarded total strangers.
So it's a decision to make let's go ahead and see if we can figure out
how to add Alvan to the tree. If you decide yeah I want to go ahead and add
them to the tree. Well first thing we need to do is try to
see if Alvan or somebody we can think of that's Alvan
is in the tree. So I go to Family Tree and find and now i'm
going to go to this page. Now I know
that Alvan let's go here and look at the record
switch to Alvan.
So Alvan is 24, his birth date is estimated in 1896,
his parents are from Ohio, his birthplace is in Ohio,
and there's not a lot of other information, he's a lodger. So
we're gonna spread that in Alvan and remember the spelling might not be
accurate. He was born about 1896 in Ohio
and i'm not seeing anybody just yet jumping out.
Maybe this one Clyde Elvin Reed? So if you can't find them you can click
on recent, add unconnected person and we're gonna put
in the information we know.
Male, he was born in 1896, So it's
quite likely that they're deceased and then i'm gonna click next. Now family
search is gonna look. Did i find anybody? No i didn't find anybody that matches
very close. So you create the new person and now we
have Alvan i'm going to copy this id number and i'm going to go back to
the source that we were working with review
and attach to record to the FamilySearch Family
Tree. Now because I just created them it's right
there, but if I ever couldn't find them I
can drop that id number in there and click select. Now i
can bring over this information clean it up just a little
bit and write a better reason statement once
I attach that record. Then i can go to his profile
hit refresh
and I can begin researching him and learn more about him. So how often
are you making sure that you finish attaching sources to people in the
FamilySearch Family Tree and how often do you find yourself
creating somebody new in order to accommodate those extras
in the records that you're visiting? Let me know in the comments section below if
you want more tips on how to use FamilySearch
click this playlist up there and if that doesn't meet your fancy
be sure to check out this video which was
selected specifically with your interest in mind.