Plot Your Ancestors With RootsMapper

If you’ve been watching the number of FamilySearch Partners grow over the past year, you know that the partner count has hit an impressive level.

One of the favorite partners to help researchers envision the migratory paths of their ancestors is RootsMapper.

Simply log in to your FamilySearch account using the link on the RootsMapper site and it will query the FamilySearch – Family Tree database for your ancestors and plot their birth and death locations on a world map.

 

 

Click on a location do to see all of the records associated with that location

 

 

 

Then click on a dot again to see the information about specific people.

 

 

Before you begin, be sure to visit Family Tree and create enough records to tie you to your closest ancestors in time, (probably your grandparents).  Accounts on FamilySearch / Family Tree are free.

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Use Tree Connect to Add Sources to Family Tree

Adding sources to FamilyTree from websites is simple using Tree Connect by RecordSeek. 

Adding the link to Tree Connect to your browser tool bar is simple too .  Drag the Tree Connect icon to the tool bar in your browser and the install is complete.  You now a link to the tool just a click away.

Let’s explore how it works using a memorial on Find-a-grave as an example of a source to add to a record in FamilySearch’s Family Tree program.

I went to the record of my ancestor that I’d created earlier on Find-a-grave.

 

 

Next, I opened a new tab and went to his record on Family Tree and copied his record number.  LHDD-DTX

 

 

Then I went back to the first tab and clicked on the Tree Connect link on my tool bar.  In the popup window, I logged in using my Family Tree credentials.

Then the Tree Connect window changed to show the source details for the Find-a-grave memorial. 

 

 

I changed the description at the bottom to my own verbiage and clicked Save.

 

 

In the new Tree Connect window, I pasted grandpa’s Family Tree record number in the bottom field and hit Search.  If I didn’t have his record number, I could have searched for him in Family Tree using the search fields.

 

 

The search obviously found his record in Family Tree.  All I had to do was click on his name to select his record.

 

 

Then I went to his record on Family Tree and looked at the Sources section on grandpa’s record.  There it is, the source I’d just added and it was formatted perfectly!

 

 

How simple was that?  Sources from any web page can be added the same way.  Be sure the source page will probably exist for an extended period of time or your effort is wasted and will cause you and the folks who follow your link to be frustrated.

Thanks Record Seek!  You made my life a whole lot easier and probably increased my likely hood of adding more sources to my family records on Family Tree than I probably normally would have included on Family Tree.

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