New Update To Your FamilySearch Home Page

Recently, you may have notices some updates to your FamilySearch home page – the default page you see after you log into FamilySearch.org.

The new look includes several tools to make it easier for you to discover and connect with family, both past and present. These include a way to share living memories more privately, and an all-in-one search, suggested tasks, a list of the profiles you’ve recently visited, a handy place to keep your to-do list, and more!

Your home page is the gateway, so to speak, of everything you can do on FamilySearch. It can help you make discoveries and keep track of your research.

Turning the New Design On and Off

First things first – if you want to check out your new home page, make sure you are logged in and that you have the toggle for viewing the new home page switched to On. You should see the toggle in the top-right corner of the screen. Feel free to switch it back and forth a few times to see how the page changes.

Once you have the new home page showing, you may notice the new submenu items, including Home, Friends, Tasks, and Recents. We’ll tell you a few things about each of these tabs below.

Your Personal FamilySearch Feed – On the Home Tab.

You can now post to FamilySearch right on the Home tab. Have you ever used a social or news feed before? Now on FamilySearch, you have a feed dedicated to capturing your history, sharing with family and friends, and building your family history together with others.

Posts on your home page can be used to share photos, stories, and other memories with family and friends and then share reactions to each other’s posts. They are a great way to capture your evolving family history or pass on new discoveries to your family and friends. You can use the feed as a place to keep a personal journal, a place to share your experiences with your family history, and more.

A post can be written comment, an image, or both. If it’s a photo, it will be automatically saved to your Memories Gallery, even though you weren’t working in the Gallery when you created it.

The new post feature should feel familiar for people who use social platforms. It even includes privacy settings for controlling who can view each post: Public Share, Myself, My Friends, My Lists, and Family Groups. A public post can be shared on other social media platforms, or viewed by anyone you give a share link to. This means you can write a post and then share it though Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, email, or more directly. It’s a great way to save your thoughts for yourself or future generations and also share them on the platforms you like best.

All Collections Search

If you know some basic information about one or more of your ancestors, you can quickly find out what FamilySearch has about them by using the All Collections Search, located on the Home tab, on the right side.

This new search option is a little different from the main search tools on FamilySearch. Most family history websites are equipped with multiple search tools for finding information. FamilySearch is no exception. When you click on the main Search tab in the FamilySearch header, for example, you have the option to search indexed records, all digital images, the Family Tree, submitted genealogies, catalogued images, digitized books, and even the research Wiki. 

Friends and Family Groups

The Friends tab on the home page is to help you connect with others on FamilySearch. When you add a friend here, you can start to see each other’s posts on the home page, according to what level of privacy you’ve set your posts at. You can also message and collaborate with them more easily.

To add a friend or others, simply type their name into the search bar on the Friends tab, and select their location.

Related Articles on FamilyTree.com:

What To Expect From FamilySearch in 2023

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