Options for using other family trees rather than using the FamilySearch.org Family Tree as a primary family tree

 

The genealogical landscape is populated by a great number of different genealogical resources and genealogical programs. It is extremely difficult to even begin to estimate the total number of active genealogical tree programs. A good sample of the programs available can be found in FamilySearch.org Solutions Gallery. The solutions gallery is available at the bottom of the startup page. Currently, there are seven apps listed as the top genealogical resources and fourteen apps listed as Family Tree Management Apps that sync information with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. FamilySearch has also entered the options by its creation of "User Trees." 

Of course, this whole discussion relies on the assumption that you are using the FamilySearch Family Tree for your primary family tree. A decision to use another app (program) besides or in addition to the FamilySearch Family Tree for your primary family tree information depends on four main factors:

1. Your view of the reliability of the FamilySearch Family Tree, considering the number of changes you view as happening within your own part of the family tree

2.  Whether or not you want to move to a fee-based Family Tree instead of using the free FamilySearch Family Tree either to stop using the FamilySearch Family Tree or to use another family tree as a backup copy.

3. Your degree of tolerance for maintaining more than one family tree. 

4. The number of individuals you consider to be part of "your" family tree. 

The first major decision involved in either moving from the FamilySearch Family Tree or using another family tree app for a backup is to use a desktop program (app, I use these terms interchangeably) or an online website. The most popular desktop family tree programs include the following:

• Family Tree Maker (Software MacKiev): Currently holds the largest market share among desktop users. It is heavily utilized for its robust multimedia scrapbook management and its native synchronization capabilities with both Ancestry and FamilySearch. It offers native applications for both macOS and Windows.

• RootsMagic: Highly adopted for its clean evidence-first architecture and direct API synchronization with FamilySearch and Ancestry. It handles local-first workflows efficiently, supports the GEDCOM 7.0 standard for data exchange, and generates comprehensive database properties reports. It runs seamlessly on both macOS and PC.

• Legacy Family Tree: Renowned for its unparalleled suite of detailed reports and comprehensive charting options, including dedicated X-DNA charts. It is highly favored by professional researchers for its organization tools, though it remains a strictly Windows-based application requiring virtualization to run on Apple Silicon hardware.

• MyHeritage Family Tree Builder: A widely used freemium desktop client that provides bidirectional synchronization with the MyHeritage global records database. It is particularly strong in local photo management and handling massive offline databases on both Mac and Windows environments.

• Heredis: A major contender that originated in France and dominates the European market, though it has built a substantial international user base. It stands out for its highly visual interface, robust mapping tools, and seamless multi-device synchronization.

• MacFamilyTree (Synium): The most popular desktop program exclusively built for the macOS ecosystem. It is heavily optimized for Apple Silicon hardware, leveraging native Apple frameworks to render massive interactive 3D charts and process 20TB+ multimedia databases with zero latency.

• Gramps: The definitive open-source, offline-first application. It provides absolute local control over databases with zero vendor lock-in, offering extensive plugin customization and strict, evidence-linked citation handling across macOS, Windows, and Linux.

• Family Historian: Widely adopted by evidence-focused genealogists for its rigorous source citation templates and interactive timelines. It operates natively around GEDCOM structures, ensuring that media and source context travel flawlessly during file exports, though it requires Windows 8, 10, or 11.

• Ancestral Quest: The direct architectural successor to PAF (Personal Ancestral File). It maintains a very loyal user base by focusing on strict, local database reporting, straightforward evidence-linked notes, and deep synchronization tools for the FamilySearch shared tree.

This is not an exhaustive list but it represents a broad spectrum of programs. Desktop programs can generally be started using a GEDCOM upload. However, the FamilySearch Family Tree does not have a GEDCOM downloading option so you must rely on the ability of the individual desktop programs to download portions of the part of the FamilySearch Family Tree that contains your family information. Some of the programs have limited support for descendants. 

If you are trying to avoid a shared family tree such as WikiTree, there a fewer options. Here is a list of the major alternatives: 

• Ancestry.com: The world's largest subscription-based genealogy platform. It provides access to billions of historical records, extensive user-generated family trees, and deep integration with its DNA testing service.

• MyHeritage.com: A major subscription and freemium platform featuring more than 20 billion historical records. It is well known for its strong international record collections and its advanced AI photo tools that allow users to enhance, colorize, repair, and animate historical photos.

• Findmypast: A prominent subscription site that specializes in British and Irish genealogy, offering the most comprehensive collection of records for the British Isles.

• Geni.com: A platform dedicated entirely to creating a single, collaborative world family tree where users interconnect their research.

Some of these programs and online websites go back years and are generally accepted as alternatives to the FamilySearch Family Tree.  If you decide to ignore the FamilySearch Family Tree, you may end up duplicating research that is already available. The huge size and continued growth of the unified FamilySearch Family Tree should be regularly consulted to help prevent redoing research that is already documented. 

I certainly recognize that individual preferences regarding the use of any of the programs and websites listed above are totally up to the individual. I use many of the programs and have become familiar with all of them over the years, but time and resources mandate making selections and choices.

Paint-by-Numbers to Remember and Honor Your Ancestors

https://paintezshop.com/products/customized001?variant=45535703072958

When I was growing up, coloring books, puzzle books, and paint-by-numbers pictures were a part of my childhood. I took art classes during high school, and when I arrived at the University of Utah as a freshman, I majored in fine art. After a year of classes, I finally realized that I was not coordinated enough to be an artist. Of course, I never lost my interest in art. During my years traveling around to various countries of the world and throughout the United States, I have gained a tremendous appreciation for arts and crafts. Paint-by-numbers still exists and is still a part of the vast do-it-yourself (DIY) movement in the United States. If you want to see the ongoing interest, do a quick YouTube search for "paint by numbers."

Out of the blue, I was contacted because of my genealogical interest by one of the major paint-by-numbers companies to see if there was interest in having paint-by-numbers applied to ancestral photographs. The company that contacted me was PaintEasy https://paintezshop.com/. Many of my genealogy friends are involved with doing books for their families, some AI generated for grandchildren, and other traditional crafts. Being as old as I am, I would view paint-by-numbers as a "traditional craft. In this case, a treasured photo of a family member can be turned into a craft project through paint-by-numbers. 

The company offered to send me a free starter kit, but I have had essential tremors since I was born and although, I would like to, painting-by-the-numbers is out of my ability. My wife, Ann, however was interested. Hence, I could write about the process and she could do the actual painting. We got our first kit and Ann is looking forward to how it works out. The idea was to convert a photo of one of our relatives into a paint-by-numbers print and then do the painting with the kit supplied. Ann decided to try out a different image first. Here is the first kit. 

FamilySearch.org Person IDs an Enigma

 

These two names are the same person. They are not duplicates in the FamilySearch Family Tree. Joshua Tanner GR5L-PSL is in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree and Joshua Tanner LKKM-LWY is the same person in my FamilySearch.org User Tree. If you want to know about User Trees on FamilySearch, see my video: https://youtu.be/vAg8XM4F3qE?si=sTQP4OVJvUA5Q0c1

If any of my relatives who are Tanners start a FamilySearch User Tree and enter Joshua Tanner as an ancestor, Joshua Tanner will have his own distinct ID number.

The FamilySearch ID numbers are an essential part of avoiding duplicate entries in the family tree. For example, if you are adding a source, the source linker may indicate that the record is already attached to that person. This indicates that there is a duplicate entry. The only real way to tell the difference between the duplicate and the original is to compare the ID numbers and look at the information entered for the individual. 

Duplicate entries on the FamilySearch Family Tree are endemic. An untold number of hours have been consumed by eliminating duplicates from the FamilySearch Family Tree. The process of resolving duplicate entries is an ongoing background to almost every entry. 

This relatively new experiment from FamilySearch Labs enables you to search all the family trees on FamilySearch at the same time. Doing this is an immediate indication of the number of duplicates that have been added to various family trees. The relatively new FamilySearch User Trees will guarantee that additional duplicate family trees and individual entries will increase. 

The reality of the international genealogical community is that anyone starting a new family tree on any online website will more than likely be doing duplicate research. For example, when I am doing research on my Ancestry family tree, any new entry that I make will almost always come up with a match to some other user who has already entered that information into their own tree. If any of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren were to work on the FamilySearch.org website, they would immediately find that their ancestral files were complete back at least six generations. Of course, this is limited to the direct lines going to me and my wife. Many times, people who are new to the FamilySearch Family Tree are surprised to find so much of their ancestral information already available. If this new person is beginning a family tree on other websites, they may not be aware that FamilySearch already has a substantial amount of information about their family. 

Given the state of technology, there should be a way for individuals working on their own private or unconnected family trees to immediately see that they are entering information already on a variety of family trees. This should be particularly the case with individuals uploading GEDCOM files to the FamilySearch User Trees. As soon as the GEDCOM file is uploaded, there should be some way to notify the new user that the names they have uploaded from another program are already on the FamilySearch Family Tree. Otherwise, there is a significant possibility that the FamilySearch User Trees will end up increasing the number of duplicates on the FamilySearch Family Tree. The generation of a new ID number for people who already exist on the FamilySearch Family Tree will add to the confusion and duplicates. 

Will Genealogy Survive AI?

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/genealogies/submissions?f.collectionId=10000130

AI's rapid advancement is caused by three factors: raw compute increases, algorithmic efficiency improvements, and "unhobbling" processes. In the current super-accelerated decade, we enjoy a 10,000x AI performance boost every four years, making it likely that AI will exceed top human experts by 2027. There are good arguments that AI progress past 2027 could be slower, but also that it could be even faster. 

Nielsen, Jakob. “The Decade of AI Super-Acceleration.” UX Tigers, July 10, 2024. https://www.uxtigers.com/post/super-accelerated-ai.

At some point, genealogists will have to face the fact that AI can accurately do much of the work genealogists do. An easy example, not considering document transcription and translation, would be the ability to search huge databases from a single prompt. In this regard, record hints and matches are quickly becoming more accurate. It will be only a short time before AI will be used to search nearly all the huge online genealogical record collections. For example, FamilySearch is spending huge resources to extend AI-supported Full-text search.

Meanwhile, the serious, advanced genealogists will comfort themselves with the seemingly huge archival collections that have yet to be digitized. One of the most extreme examples is the United States National Archives where only a very small percentage of the documents have been digitized. 

One of the main commonly expressed arguments against the utility of AI is the issue of the inappropriately named "hallucinations." One way of responding to this background concern is to ask, compared to what? AI is essentially a computer program. Top commercial models (like Google's Gemini Flash variants and standard GPT models) have dropped below a 1% hallucination rate on basic apples-to-apples summarization tests. 

See Graffius, S. M. (2026, January 7). Are AI Hallucinations Getting Better or Worse? We Analyzed the Data. ScottGraffius.com. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.33179.53285. 

One way to control the hallucination issue is to use your chat program to self-critique or correct any task you have asked it to do. For example, if I ask Gemini to transcribe and/or translate a document, I use a specially designed prompt to initiate the process and then I start a new chat and give Gemini the prompt I used and the results and ask it to review and correct the output. You may be surprised at the response. 

Now, if AI continues to get better and expand in its capabilities, how much more of what genealogists do could be done more accurately and much faster than even the most expert level genealogist?

Here is a list of some of the genealogical tasks that would be enhanced or replaced by using AI.

Searching for valuable historic and genealogically useful information from online and paper-based archives and websites. Granted there is a current "paywall" issue. Without permission, most genealogy database sites are protected by account authentication layers, paywalls, and robots.txt/web-scraping blockers. But once we do the job of finding a record on a protected website, an AI assistant can transcribe, translate, and analyze the document. Currently with context-sensitive AI, anything you can see on your computer can be seen by the AI assistant and analyzed despite a paywall. This only means that the paywall sites need to catch up to the new technology if they want to do so. 

Google's Gemini 3 generation operates with a standard input context window of 1 million tokens—expandable up to 2 million tokens in advanced developer and enterprise environments—and supports up to 64,000 output tokens. Across its natively multimodal architecture, a 1-million-token input translates to roughly 700,000 words, approximately 1,500 single-spaced pages of text, 1 hour of video, or 11 hours of audio in a single prompt.

See Google DeepMind, Gemini 3 Pro Model Card (Mountain View, CA: Google, 2025; updated May 2026), 2–3, Google DeepMind Media. 

How long would it take you to search through this number of pages? 

From my own experience I have added 120 original documents that include deeds, probate files, town records and other similar documents and using Gemini Notebook, Gemini generated a spreadsheet showing all the people named in all the documents with citations to the documents and showing the relationship, if present, of all the people named. The long part of this analysis was locating and uploading the documents. Gemini did the analysis in a matter of a few minutes. 

How long would it take you to do the same analysis?

Using FamilySearch's Full-text search, I was able to find deeds and probate documents about my ancestors that I had never and would not have even spent the time to find. 

What new-to-you documents do you think a full-text search might reveal? 

As AI matures and becomes more sophisticated and reliable, the tasks it will be able to do will continue to expand. Those genealogists that are still working on paper or even those who do not care to learn about AI may one day wake up to the fact that any work they do is already done by an online website such as FamilySearch. 

See Trent Toone, “What Latter-day Saints Should Know About Temple and Family History,” Church News, March 6, 2026, https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2026/03/06/elder-mark-bragg-rootstech-2026-what-latter-day-saints-should-know-temple-family-history/.

Can a genealogist remain relevant? The ones that are relevant today will be the ones who are relevant tomorrow. These relevant genealogists are the ones that are anxious to adopt whatever advances in technology that will help them do their work better, faster, and with more accurate content. AI is already doing this for a large number of genealogists. 

Additional Note: I use Google Gemini for my examples for the simple reason that Google has optimized Gemini for deep research and synthesis, which aligns directly with what I do as a genealogist.

FamilySearch announces genetic genealogy expert CeCe Moore and actress and philanthropist Jane Seymour as keynote speakers for RootsTech 2027

 

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQhWfMTkxcCvvVpPTVBmrLflVzg

Registration is now open for RootsTech 2027 on March 4th to 6th, 2027. The conference will be held at the Salt Palace, in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The theme for RootsTech 2027—“Celebrate!”—encourages participants to see family history as a living celebration of people, cultures, and stories that connect generations. 

Two of the keynote speakers have been announced. 

CeCe More

Quoting from the announcement:

An internationally recognized DNA investigative expert, educator, and pioneer in genetic genealogy, CeCe Moore has helped transform the way people use DNA to discover family connections and solve longstanding mysteries. Her work has been featured in thousands of articles and television programs worldwide, and she has served 13 seasons as the genetic genealogist on the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. 

Moore’s groundbreaking work has demonstrated the remarkable impact of family history research and DNA analysis, helping establish genetic genealogy as an essential tool for learning more about our ancestors. 

Jane Seymour

Again quoting from the announcement:

Award-winning actress, author, and philanthropist Jane Seymour has inspired audiences for more than five decades across television, film, stage, and literature. Best known to many for her Golden Globe-winning role in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Seymour’s work extends beyond entertainment through her dedication to philanthropic causes and family-centered storytelling. 

In 2010, she founded the Open Hearts Foundation, inspired by the philosophy of resilience and selfless giving passed down by her mother. Today, the foundation supports nonprofits that help individuals transform adversity into opportunity, and it has provided grants to organizations throughout the United States.

 See you at RootsTech.

 

RootsTech 2027 Opens Registration with Dual In-Person and Virtual Format

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/

Registration is officially open for RootsTech 2027, scheduled for March 4–6, 2027. Hosted by FamilySearch International, the conference returns to its dual format: an in-person gathering at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, alongside a free virtual program broadcast worldwide.

The 2027 theme is "Celebrate!", focusing on cultural heritage, traditions, and shared history.

Conference Formats: In-Person vs. Virtual

• Free Virtual Access: Requires no registration fee and includes livestreamed keynotes, select educational classes, virtual vendor booths, and the "Relatives at RootsTech" networking feature.
  
  
• In-Person Attendance: Early-bird pricing is now available on RootsTech.org. Passes provide full access to all on-site classes, hands-on computer labs, the main expo hall, and one-on-one specialist consultations. Detailed speaker lineups and class schedules will be released in the coming months.
  
  

What It Means for Genealogists

Beyond promotional storytelling, RootsTech remains the key annual barometer for the genealogy industry. It serves as the primary stage for new technological developments—such as AI-assisted text recognition, automated indexing, and DNA privacy policies—as well as platform roadmap announcements from major vendors and archives.

Whether attending in Salt Lake City or participating online, researchers should review the session catalog when published to target advanced methodology classes, paleography training, and regional record collections directly relevant to their research problems.

This blog post was written with the assistance of Google Gemini. 

10 Ways to Survive Using the FamilySearch.org Website

FamilySearch.org can seem overwhelming at first glance. Yet just as the saguaro cactus thrives in a harsh desert, you can adapt and master the platform. Here are ten practical survival suggestions for navigating the FamilySearch Family Tree and uncovering your ancestors. Much like packing a full canteen before trekking into the desert, understanding these essentials will save you needless frustration along the way.

Of course, you need to register and sign in to the website. This is free and necessary to view sources and other parts of the website.

1. Take an intensive tour of the entire website. You can scroll to the bottom of the startup page, click the "More" arrow, and see a representative outline of the items you should be familiar with on the website. From my own experience in helping people I am certain that most users are not even aware that there are so many things on this website. If you're traveling in the desert, you need a definite beginning and an end, usually by using a map or a GPS. The help center is like a GPS for the website. 

2. When you finish with the list at the bottom of the startup page take some time to explore the help menu available from the question mark icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. 

A review of the items in this help menu may help you understand what you do not know about the website. If you need help with any part of the website, you can use the help menu to answer your questions. If you dig down deep in the Help Center, you will also find a set of lessons instructing you on how to do genealogical research and also how to use the website in great detail. Here is a link to the page with all the classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/learning-center

3. Take time to review your portion of the FamilySearch Family Tree. You may have only a few entries, and you may have an overwhelming large number of entries. In either case, you will now be made aware of the scope of your journey using the website. The whole purpose of the website is to find and then document each of your ancestors and as many of your relatives as you can possibly find. This is analogous to beginning a journey across a very large desert. You need to know the extent of your journey long before you begin walking. Also take time to check the entries that are already in the FamilySearch Family Tree to make sure they are accurate. 

4. Become familiar with the FamilySearch Research Wiki. This resource will give you an idea of the historical record sources that are available for almost any place in the world. It will also prepare you for the next suggestion or trick. You can see the link to the Research Wiki above in the Search tab. 

5. Do not add any information to the FamilySearch Family Tree that does not have a valid historical source supporting its accuracy. This is akin to avoiding cactus and rattlesnakes. Any time you see an entry for an individual in the FamilySearch Family Tree that has no sources attached and no memories, you can assume the information is either inaccurate, incomplete, or a total fabrication. 

6. Just as certain desert regions pose extreme hazards, specific sections of the FamilySearch Family Tree present equal danger to researchers. These are the volatile sectors of "revolving-door" ancestors, where entries change almost daily. Entangling yourself in these unstable records can quickly erode your enthusiasm and resolve. Before attempting any corrections, examine the profile’s edit history; click the "Show all" link to review the full volume of recent revisions before entering what you believe to be the correct data. Even seasoned desert travelers encounter sudden dust storms and flash floods—and these chronically contested profiles are the flash floods of the FamilySearch environment.

7. Did you know that each of the items in the FamilySearch Search Menu access different collections of records that may or may not overlap. You can see the list below. Click on each of the entries in the search menu to find out what they are and how to use them. You may need to refer frequently to the Help menu for additional help. 

8. As you add information to the FamilySearch.org website, it is a good for your survival to keep a backup copy of your own information on another app, either on the internet or on your desktop, which ever you prefer. Having a duplicate copy of your information helps you correct changes that might be made to your information on the FamilySearch Family Tree. You can also use the new FamilySearch User Trees for backup. See my video Understanding FamilySearch’s User Owned Trees 

9. Check FamilySearch Labs for new apps and features. See https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/ You can turn the lab experiments off or on. If you like them, you can keep them on. 

10. If you really want an expansive experience, Go to the FamilySearch Labs and click on the "Search All Family Trees" on FamilySearch. Then go to the Historic Records collections (Records in the Search tab shown above) and do a search for someone already in your part of the family tree. You may seem confused at first with what appear to be duplicates, but what you are seeing in the same person in all the FamilySearch.org trees. You can go to the Find Your Family Tree on FamilySearch also. 

Here is a list of additional helps for learning about the FamilySearch.org website. 

BYU Library Family History. “BYU Library Family History Center.” Accessed September 10, 2026. https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/.

“FamilySearch YouTube Channel.” Accessed September 10, 2026. https://www.youtube.com/@familysearch.

RootsTech. “RootsTech Conference & Year‑Round Learning.” Accessed September 10, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/.

“The Family History Guide.” Accessed September 10, 2026. https://thefhguide.com/.

YouTube. “BYU Library Family History Center YouTube Channel.” Accessed September 10, 2026. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7hqNOQt-2AfeVEpDuc7sCA.