Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Family History Guide added to FamilySearch App Gallery



The FamilySearch.org website is large and fairly complex. Since its introduction, there has been a need for a "front end" or a way to understand and learn about all of the resources. This new "App" in the FamilySearch.org App Gallery clearly addresses that challenge. The Family History Guide is described as follows:
The Family History Guide helps you get started - and get farther - with your family history. There are links to over 1,000 videos and articles, all integrated into a step-by-step learning plan for learners of all levels. Projects include Family Tree, Memories, Descendants or Ordinances, Discover (research for over 35 countries), Indexing, Help, and Technology. Classroom materials are also available for instructors who want to teach using The Family History Guide.
This is an organized, structured approach to learning about FamilySearch.org. Quoting from a comment by blogger, Susan Lynne Maxwell:
This is such a great tool for beginners, intermediates and for advanced family historians. It holds your hand while it guide you through a learning process or even refreshes your skills. You have goals that can be tracked using tracker sheets so you know what you have accomplished and what you have left to learn. FamilySearch and others offer such great material and this tool takes you first to some of the most important videos and documents to help you learn. Then as you get more comfortable with the process you can go all the way through the discovery process honing your research skills and and documenting your family memories. This tool is for everyone!
OK, so since when do I praise a new program so effusively? The answer is that this program, The Family History Guide, addresses a need that has been floating around for years.  In my experience, day after day, answering questions from patrons at the Family History Library and others, I have seen a need for this type of product. The Family History Guide is a structured, very professional and complete introduction to genealogy as well as the specifics of FamilySearch.org.

To get started with The Family History Guide, you should watch the short introductory video.

All you need to do from the startup page is to click on the Get Started link. We have already planned to do a series of classes at the Brigham Young University Family History Library specifically on The Family History Guide.

2 comments:

  1. I am very excited to be more organized in selecting classes to suggest or to take in family history and genealogy. This is a huge offering, a step-by-step learning guide to doing family history no matter what level of experience one has.

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  2. It is a huge offering, but it is also a huge job to keep it updated. The Danish site has changed, therefore the Learning Center videos are out of date as well as other things that have taken their information from them. The site doesn't even look the same. I wish them well but it's going to be full time to keep it up. I wish them well, it's a great idea.

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