Discover Your Family (Part 2)

In our first Discover Your Family post, we went over signing in and adding everything you know about your family to the Family Tree. If you are not finished with adding everything you know, finish that first and then come back to this post where we will learn how to search FamilySearch.org from the person page.

Go to the Family Tree, and select the person you would like to learn more about. Click on "Person" on the bottom of the person card.

Person Page

You will end up on the person page. Here is the person page for Lafayette Franklin Vance (1861-1952):

On the right you will see where you can search from within FamilySearch.org to find historical documents that mention Lafayette. Click on FamilySearch under "Search Records."

Search Records

Searching from the person page after you have entered data that you know about a person will bring more results quicker than searching without a Family Tree. This is where you will see that because you entered information that you know on Family Tree first FamilySearch.org used the information to bring back all the possible results for Lafayette:

As you can see, the first five records are records that document Lafayette (1861-1952). The next thing you will need to know how to do is attach each historical document to the person. Click on one of the results. I chose the 1920 United States Census:

Attach to Family Tree

You can review the original document to make sure it is the same person. To attach the document to Family Tree, click the blue button that says "Attach to Family Tree." The left side is who is on the United States Census, 1920. The right side represents who is on the Family Tree.

We need to compare each person on the left with the person on the right. Let's compare Lafayette F. Vance (1862- ) with Lafayette Franklin Vance (1861-1952).

Click "Compare" between the two Lafayette's.

Click on "Add" next to Residence. We now know where Lafayette was living during the 1920 Census. I would also remove tag off name and birth because they are different than the known name and birth. Next, I would put a reason for attaching the source. Click "Attach."

Sources

Now, lets go back to the person page. We should see the record added by clicking "Sources:"

Click to open "Lafayette F. Vance, 'United State Census, 1920.'"

For every document that you find you can create a source which will be attached to the person's page. Do you have any questions? Many people use FamilySearch.org in our Facebook Group online. Come on over and ask us there.