Descendancy Research

Day 17 may be my favorite so far!  I find decency research to be so helpful, especially for people with full trees, or those looking for people that need temple ordinances.  This is from the "My Tree is Done" plan for the Connections Experiment.

Here's how to do it:

  1. Sign in to FamilySearch and go to the family tree in fan view.
  2. Choose an ancestor at least 3-4 generations back and click on the fan in their tile.  This will make them the person in the middle circle and you will see that person's ancestors only.
  3. Click on the down arrow in the upper left hand corner and switch the view to descendancy.
This shows where to change the fan chart to a descendancy view.
Descendancy view shows just one generation automatically.  You can change to see more generations by choosing the number in the top left.  I suggest going through all of generation 1, refreshing the page, changing to 2 generations, then doing it all over again.  This is a great way to find new cousins and aunts and uncles!

Here is a screenshot of a 4 generation chart.  You can see there are a lot of symbols next to my ancestors.  The light blue icons means there is a record hint to check out. The purple icon means there may be missing information.  The orange icon means there needs to be more information before temple work can be done.  Green temple icons means these can people are ready for temple work.  

You can also find an awesome visual on Puzzilla that can also help you identify spots where you may be missing relatives.

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