08 January 2020
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FamilySearch has announced what users of this global genealogy website can expect over the coming year, including the release of 500 million new searchable records and digital images.
FamilySearch's 13 million+ users can look forward to new innovations rolling out during 2020, some of which are previewed below.
Improved merge experience
FamilySearch users will enjoy an improved merge experience, promises the genealogy giant. They will be able to learn more and more easily collaborate by combining duplicate profiles for common ancestors.
The Latest Changes feature for ancestor profiles will be enhanced, allowing users to see more details of all past edits and changes through the family tree view.
Mobile app
The FamilySearch mobile app available in both iOS and Android formats, will release a new My Contributions feature, with access on the website to follow. My Contributions will help users organise their family history work in three tabs:
- Stats: These stats summarise each person's contributions to the shared Family Tree. They will include sources and memories attached and persons added
- Changes: This item is a list of all of a person's activity in the shared Family Tree. Changes are organised by person, with the most recent on top
- Private Persons: This tab shows a list of the living and confidential people you have added to the Family Tree, allowing you to better manage them within your private space. Only that user is able to see and modify these profiles
A new tool for exploring images
The new tool will be available for viewing new record images within days of their being digitised from archives worldwide and published on FamilySearch, as well as the billions of other historical records images FamilySearch already has online. This feature will give users quicker and better access to images that aren’t yet text-searchable.
Categorising memories
A simple but powerful update in Memories will allow users to add topic tags to photos and documents uploaded to FamilySearch. This change will improve the ability to categorise memories that users add to their ancestors’ profiles and enable them to search for specific memories among those that have been uploaded.
Users will also be able to "like" whole albums in FamilySearch Memories.
Explore FamilySearch here.
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