Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Family Tree Photos

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Even after the widely announced FamilySearch feature called ‘Photosmany of my genealogy friends still aren’t using it to add photos of their ancestors to Family Tree.

Let’s review the easy process used to add photos to records on Family Tree.

The photos program allows us to upload genealogy photos and tie them to the records of our ancestral families in Family Tree.

Let’s go through the steps to upload and link an image.

  • Start by logging in using your FamilySearch account credentials.

  • Find a photo or photos of your ancestors on your hard drive.

  • Go to the Photos site.

  • **** READ**** the Upload Guide before you start adding images.

    • No nudity, no swimsuits, no low cut dresses

    • Images must be genealogy related

    • No screen captures from other sites

    • No scenery, vacation trips or other non-genealogy topics. They will be rejected.

    • No images found in the FamilySearch collections. Just link them using the Source Box tool.

    • No photos of living people. The site won’t allow you to link them to a record.

    • No photos of animals

    • You MUST have the rights to upload all images

    • All images will be visible by the public

The main page of the application shows a green “X”. Click on it then drag your photos to the gray field under it and drop them.

The photos will now show up on the screens of the photo screener team for approval or rejection. The approval process is typically very fast. If not, be patient. They may be swamped with all the uploads as the program rolls out to the church population in general.

Until the images are approved they will show as Gray boxes with your file name under the boxes.

Click on one of the boxes after a minute or two and you should be able to start the identification and linking process.

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Click on the face in the image that you want to display. A circle will appear. Center and resize it to show their face so it will show on their record on FamilySearch.

Add their FULL name at birth without a married surname to the field under their face. Then click on the +Add New Person button below that field. FamilySearch will search for them using this name, so try to be as accurate as possible.

Add their name to the top right field in this tool. This entry will be the caption under the photo, so you can use a married name, add a nickname in quotes, etc. to this field. It doesn’t work the same as the above FamilySearch ‘search’ field.

Next, click on their name mid-way down the gray field on the right side of your screen. A list of possible ‘Hits’ from FamilySearch will appear in the right frame.  If your ancestor is in the list, simply click on their name and the photo is linked to their record. If they aren’t there or you aren’t sure it is their record, open a new browser tab and go to Family Tree on FamilySearch.

Search for their record, copy their record number from just under their name, then come back to the Photos tool and paste the record number in the search field. Click on their name on the right frame again and it will appear if you can’t see it initially. Once you’ve pasted their record number and hit ‘enter’ the image is linked.

That’s all there is to it!   Go to their record on FamilySearch, refresh your screen and their image now shows at the top by their name.