Family Search Reviews

(based on 18 reviews)

23 of 45 people found this review helpful

I have been using FamilySearch for thirty years and it has continually improved. For free they are the only source for some information. A particular case is South Africa Where I have been able to find records for at least 80% of my relatives who have lived there. It is marvellous that they have supplied images of the original documents so that I can make my own transcript from such and be sure I have the records (fairly!) right.

They have recently improved the presentation of the summaries of the records for people, making it easy to see what vital records that they can provide.

Earlier today I tried to see if I could make an offering to their funds as I was so grateful for all the information I have been given by them. But they do not allow it, it is all for free.

In summary, I would recommend Family Search to a friend.

33 of 62 people found this review helpful

I uploaded my family tree to this site (to its old program) several years ago. To my amazement I could not find myself now. I am told to start a new family tree in which I will be assigned a new ID. Then add my deceased parent(s) to the tree, my ancestors will automatically be added. It works! yeah!
The problem that my mother was then alive but now deceased. I could not find her either. I have to create a new ID for her and then input all other info to my immediate family.
I am now able to upload all photos, documents and stories for myself and my parents. But because I am the only one can see myself on this site. After I die my family tree will be gone.
Yes, my children can create a family tree for their own (individually) in which each of them will have new IDs for me and for themselves. But that will be different IDs which they input info separately to their individual tree. Neither one will have any info that I uploaded to myself.

In summary, I would recommend Family Search to a friend.

42 of 85 people found this review helpful

You can put information in your tree that you either have verified or know personally. Someone else comes along and changes it. I suspect that people who have ancestors with the same name mix-up the individuals and proceed to make changes in your tree without your approval thus eventually making the tree useless. Also, you are unable to delete your tree so once you enter it you lose control and it remains online forever with inaccurate information. I don't want to waste my time entering and then later have to do corrections after someone makes changes. Totally frustrating.

In summary, I would not recommend Family Search to a friend.

58 of 133 people found this review helpful

It provides a lot of information about people years ago. The bad is if you join to put your geneology tree in. Be careful. I put in first hand information about my family and someone changed my ancestors. This is information I know direct. It was my family. When I contact them about it and they blew me off. They even contact me and tried to make me feel dumb. It hurt very much. I've been doing my genealogy for forty years. I know my ancestors, especially my direct family which should go without saying, but they felt they knew my mother better than I did. Really! Get real! I had no way of taking down my tree so I eliminated my information. I understand other people have had this problem also. I no longer use them.

In summary, I would not recommend Family Search to a friend.

76 of 150 people found this review helpful

I've not used Family Search for long, but noticed very quickly that I was able to enter my pretty well-researched famiily tree easily, and made a few possibly accurate discoveries.

However... I am also able to follow my family tree in unbroken chains to the following:
Charlemagne
Boudicea/Boudica (she's in there twice at least)
Catherine Howard (of Henry Tudor fame)
Kings and Queens and other royalty and nobility of every stripe (over the whole of the UK, Europe, into Turkey, etc)
Pre-Roman Britain
(I think you get the picture)

Several things are possible:
- My family IS actually full of historic figures (doubtful.. Some, maybe. More likely, not.)
- Some individuals intentionally tied relatives to royalty to make it seem true (possible, to likely)
- The site is rife with erroneous relationship links (possible... Some almost comical or "jokey" errors, like wife of some ancient guy in the 600-900s having a modern name and 1900s birthdate)
- There is a load of nonsense due to the site's "open source" collaboration (quite possible)
- The sites it pulls from have many duplicates and errors in lineages (also quite possible)

So... while it is entertaining to see who I can find at the end of each line, I wouldn't be inclined to take it very... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would recommend Family Search to a friend.

87 of 177 people found this review helpful

I uploaded my gedcom file in Family Search and noted that unlike other genealogy websites, don't expect this website to display the gedcom file you upload. This was really frustrating to say the least as I have over 5k names listed in my tree from the past 21 years. I have effectively verified most of the information I have, but it's hard to tell if the source documentation itself even uploads.

I spoke with one person and she was somewhat helpful, but her advice didn't make the process any easier, you will still have to enter your family tree information manually which can take hours if not months of work.
The other problem is that instructions read like bad stereo instructions, the average user will find them hard to follow. The website isn't user friendly.

I tried comparing my gedcom to Family Search info and found that what you get is close matches, but not source documentation or anything else to compare to, again it becomes a "user friendly" issue. Most people research family information need accuracy and that's not here. I found many folks listing children born to mothers in their 50's which begs accuracy.

I can't recommend this... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would not recommend Family Search to a friend.

87 of 173 people found this review helpful

This site is continuing to add features and it is not always easy to find what you are looking for. It is divided into two major areas and several other areas.

What most people, including the reviewer on this site, do not understand is that there are -no- individual trees, except those that are uploaded into a read-only area via GEDCOM files.

The major tree is one single collaborative open-edit tree that is intended to cover the entire human race. Living persons are private, available only to those who create them. Deceased persons are generally open-edit, except for those born before 1500 and certain celebrity personalities (mostly attached to the early Mormon Church leadership).

The tree was created from previous tree systems used by the Genealogical Society of Utah (now FamilySearch) and contains many duplicates which patrons can merge to help clean up the tree. It has a built-in source linker that can be used to link sources from the Historical Records Collection (which is the other major section) with their respective persons in the tree.

Two searches are available. One search covers the massive tree (currently there are over 1.1 Billion names in the tree) and it is access... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would recommend Family Search to a friend.

112 of 222 people found this review helpful

This place offers what other sites charge for. I tried those other sites, then a friend told me about going to the Mormon church. You have to find a church that has the lab set up. They had a staff there to accommodate my needs, get me going, and show me how to use their site. I love going there, and when I am stuck, if they can't answer my needs, they will get a call in to someone who can. No charge. Free. Can't beat that!!

In summary, I would recommend Family Search to a friend.

119 of 245 people found this review helpful

The search engine is next to useless. If I want to find a marriage between two people, for example, and enter the names, I get a long list of completely irrelevant results with the groom's name as the father of the bride/groom and a list of names as the possible spouse. Other searches yield similarly unhelpful results. Don't waste your time. The free version of ancestry.com is more useful.

In summary, I would not recommend Family Search to a friend.

186 of 363 people found this review helpful

Very difficult to even get started. I couldn't even find my own grandfather with his year of birth. He died over a year ago so I should have been able to connect to him. Can't see my mother's line at all. Ridiculous amount of effort for zero return. Help was unavailable when I asked for it.

In summary, I would not recommend Family Search to a friend.