FamilySearch Tree

I have entered what I knew, accepted what treasures that came, to find my ancestors, has been the greatest treasures of my life. Good , bad , or otherwise , my people, and I love the knowledge of knowing of my ancestors. These truths can not be taken from me, other people may have reasons to accept or refuse our heritage, the dna, and knowledge show native American & immigrants, bloodlines mixed. I ask nothing for being me, I don’t want paid, for being me. No 1 can take or change by their words ,who our ancestors were, because they moved , here or there to survive, I am who I am because of my ancestors, their blood and teachings are who I am, no one can take away your beginnings. I can look and see the faces of my people now that looked like family found in historic photos, and drawings as far back as museums& history books , have recorded. We knew our grandparents & records prove history & legends to be true, this records match as always been told, many treasurers unfold, not to seek fortunes, only treasured loved ancestors are my treasures! Thank you , and may god bless you! Janet marie kilburn Craig shaner

I have used this app 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 THIS APP!

The app 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.

The app 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.

I highly recommend this app. 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 this app!