In the upper right corner of the login page is a pulldown.  From this pulldown, we can select to use the Family Tree in English, Spanish, or Japanese.

The Family Tree has added a new tab — Temple.  On this tab (page), patrons track:

• Names placed on the Temple list (reserved / submitted),
• Printed Temple cards, and
• Completed ordinances.

Great news, another update to Record Search has been delivered! Please read the list below to get an idea of what has been added but more importantly go to the site and take a look. Here is a quick look at several of the features.

Updated Home Page

• Less is more – The home page has been simplified for easier navigation of the information you need. See the latest details on what information has been updated, easily navigate to specific collections, and search with more flexibility.

Collection Navigation

• A picture is worth 1,000 words – A map is now available for grouping collections by place, this provides you quick focus on the area that you are researching to see what has been added and what is available.
• Where are your records – Collections are now provided in Regions - a high level grouping of countries so you can easily select the area of the world you are looking for information on and then scan for the country that you need records from. To simplify finding the right set of records only one list of collections is offered. By selecting a collection by default you are taken to search the indexed collection if one exists – otherwise you are taken to the unindexed view (formerly browse). There is also a link from any indexed collection that also has an unindexed view to switch if desired to that view.
• Images or not – To help you quickly identify what kind of content is available in a collection there is a new tag to identify collections without images. Look for this tag – “no images” just after the collection name.
• Just In – There is now a section for collection news that features information on recently added collections. This is a quick way for you to get an idea of the latest and greatest additions to the site.

Image Viewer

• This Way or That Way – Collections that feature images in multiple layouts are no longer a problem as they are easily rotated to provide the proper view. Rotate Image is now available on the image toolbar for all images.

Wildcard Searching

• Names go wild - Wildcard searching is now available for first or last name. Use the wildcard symbol (*) with at least 3 preceding characters – ie. “Rob*”

Additional Browser Support

• The choice is yours – Safari is now officially supported as a browser on Mac and Windows. You can choose the browser that best suits your needs – Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari.

Changes made by selecting summary values are now reflected immediately on new.FamilySearch.org.  The Family Tree is a “live” product updating the new FamilySearch realtime.

In order to provide greater visual access to information in the Family History Library Catalog, geographically driven tools have been created to “plug” into the Google Earth, Google Maps, and ArcReader applications.  You can read all applicable instructions, and download these plug-ins by clicking on the “Resources” tab on the Standard Finder tool in FamilySearch Labs.

These plug-ins allow you to navigate by clicking through maps or searching based on approximate addresses to view all the information the Family History Library Catalog has in its records regarding a specific county location.  For example, after I install the Google Earth plug-in, and if I enter in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the “Fly to” search field, it will zoom into Allen County, where Fort Wayne is located.  If I click on the Allen County icon, it will show a bubble which I can then click and see all of the records which the Family History Library Catalog has on Allen County, Indiana.

These wonderful tools are being expanded for additional countries, so keep watching as they are added to assist in your continuing research.

One of the most challenging parts of finding ancestors is which place to look for them.  In this latest update we have tried to provide the most flexible way to search for place - allowing you to search by country, state/province, county, or city.  This is done by simply typing the name of the place and allowing the list to appear below then selecting the best match.  We have also provided the list of selections from our extensive database of places which accounts for near mis-spellings and or changes in places over time.  So you may see a few suggestions that you may not expect. 

With power comes responsibility.  So if you search for a city that doesn’t have your ancestors name you will get zero results, this means that you need to expand your search to the county, state, or country. 

In my case when I search for my great grandfather I get 7 results for city, 11 for county, 49 for state, and 3,388 for country.  So you can see a big difference in results - so please expand your search if you get 0 results as ancestors could be mis-recorded in different cities or counties. 

One strategy is to start big and narrow results by using filters in the results page as well (note: we can’t filter place county or city yet - but are looking at that).  But you can use many other filters like events, collections, roles, etc. to find your best result and hopefully your ancestor.

We hope this improves your results in looking for your ancestors and look forward to hearing of your success.

The following improvements have been made to the Family Tree:

• Printing is now available from the Tree, Folders, and Search tabs.
• “Go to Tree,” “Open Folder,” and “Go to Search” buttons are now consistently represented and more visible.
• Screens should come up faster and should be easier to read.

We continue to work to make the site easier to use and have appreciated the comments and feedback that we have received over the past two weeks since our last update. Now we have updated the site one more time with the following changes:

• No login required: We have opened the site up for quick and easy access without registering
• Improved Home Page: Modified a bit of the look to freshen the site for new users
• Improved Place Suggestions: Country and State suggestions are significantly better - see if it works better for you. But don’t forget searching by county and or city is still very much supported.
• Client Side Caching: The site updates are better managed and subsequent startup times should be quicker
• New Collections: Civil War Pensions and US 1860 Census (one state)

Please take a look at the site - we will be watching the blogs and feedback to hear how these changes are helping you!

Version 1.3 of the Record Search pilot is available.  This release features a number of enhancements from the look and feel to the types of searches that are available. 

Take some time to check it out and give us feedback on how we are doing.

http://search.labs.familysearch.org

The Family Tree has been updated with the following:

1. We added “Helpful Tips” to identify features that may not be obvious.
2. If you have folders open when you log off, those folders are open when you log back in.
3. We improved the graphics when selecting other spouses and other parents from the Tree tab.