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Friday, March 1, 2013

RecordSeek automates adding sources to FamilySearch Family Tree

The new RecordSeek program automates the task of entering sources to FamilySearch Family Tree from websites not on FamilySearch.org. It does this from a Tree Connect tab installed on your browser that will bring up a FamilySearch Family Tree source form for use with any source you find on the Internet. You may still have to fill in some or all of the information from the source, but in some cases, as I found with FindAGrave.com, the program does all the work of filling in the form also.

With over 400 FindAGrave.com sources waiting for me on my MyHeritage.com Record Search function, I am overjoyed to find a way to speed up adding all those sources to FamilySearch Family Tree. Here is a step-by-step illustration of how this works:

1. Go to the RecordSeek.com website and drag the TreeConnect button to your bookmarks toolbar. I am using an example of one of my Uncles, Arthur Tanner. (You can click on the images to enlarge them).


The arrow points to the TreeConnect tab in the browser bar. Clicking on the link to TreeConnect brings up the next screen:


If you enlarge the form, you can see that the linking information is already entered into the form. I usually copy whatever biographical or family information on the FindAGrave.com form into the box entitled Describe the Record (Notes).

When I click "Save," the form then allows me to search for the individual to whom the source is to be attached:


I entered the person's name and in this case, I also entered the name of his father because there are likely to be more than one Arthur Tanner in the database. Clicking on the Search link gives me a list of results of the search and I choose the one corresponding to my Uncle. I can then attach the source directly to Arthur Tanner.


In the last step, I can close the window or view the source in my Source Box (a temporary holding file) or view the source or view the person card. Here is a screen shot of the Person Card for Arthur Tanner with the source attached and linked to the FindAGrave.com entry.


The whole process takes only a minute or two depending on how much typing you have to do. Obviously, you do not have to go look at the entries in FamilySearch Family Tree each time.

This will be very helpful to me, assuming that I ever get past the dysfunctional portions of the FamilySearch Family Tree program.

3 comments:

  1. Did you notice that you can also upload images using the Tree Connect button? You don't have to be on any particular web page.
    Click the Tree Connect button, skip that first form and click on "Upload Media" in the top right corner.
    You can drag images saved on your computer to the next page or navigate to the folder you want, Start Upload, Create Source then fill in any information you want.
    I am waiting to see how the FamilySearch feature for uploading images works out before I do too many using Tree Connect but it is nice to have that available now.

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  2. Another way to speed things up on FindaGrave, or other sources too I suspect, is to highlight the information you want included in the Notes before using the Tree Connect button. That pulls in anything you highlight into Notes automatically.

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  3. If the Image Upload is used to attach an (image of a) document to a Family Tree source, the document image resides on RecordSeek's site, not on Family Tree. Anyone know if that's ok - how long will the RecordSeek image persist, other issues??

    Being able to automatically upload a SOURCE image is wonderful - hopefully to be automated by FamilySearch Family Tree - meanwhile, should I/we wait for that or use RecordSeek.com's feature?
    Thanks,
    ==George=

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