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Ancestral Quest and new FamilySearch
Sample Screen Shots
 Ancestral Quest can act as a bridge between your data and the family tree of new.FamilySearch.org. AQ was the first Desktop family tree product to be certified by FamilySearch to work with New FamilySearch, and received an award from FamilySearch for having the most comprehensive set of tools for working with nFS. These tools make it possible for you to download data from new FamilySearch into your own database, as well as share information from your database with the family tree of new.familysearch.org. (Most of these capabilities are available in both Ancestral Quest and Ancestral Quest Basics, but a few of the more advanced features are only available in the full version. See comparison.)
Note that access to new FamilySearch is currently limited. The number of users with access
is controlled by FamilySearch, and is growing. If you are interested in using these features,
please first verify whether you have access to New FamilySearch. More.
Let's give you a brief look into the screens that allow you to work with the
family tree of new.FamilySearch.org. Click on any
screen below to enlarge it.
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First, you will need to activate these features. You can do this in AQ's Preferences screen.
With these features enabled, you will immediately see FamilySearch icons by the name of each deceased person in your file, both in the Family View and in the Pedigree View. Initially, these icons will be gray,
indicating that you have not yet linked the person with New FamilySearch. Simply click on the gray FamilySearch
icon to begin the matching process with New FamilySearch. Once you have linked a person in your file with
the corresponding record in FamilySearch, you will note that the FamilySearch icon turns blue.
These icons give you a quick visual overview of which individuals have been linked with New FamilySearch
and which have not yet been linked, just by noting gray vs blue coloring.
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 You
can also sort the list of names by the nFS ID, to quickly see
which of all your records have been linked and which have not. (In AQ, you can
sort the list of individuals on ANY field.)
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Linking and Synchronizing Individuals
 It
is very easy to link your records with nFS. You can either do this one person at a
time, or in groups. To link a single individual, simply click on a gray FamilySearch icon, or select the individual in the
Pedigree or Family screen, then from the FamilySearch menu choose Link
(Sync) Individual. AQ
will provide you with a list of possible matches on nFS. If you find
no matches, you can
add your record to nFS. If you find
only one match, you can
link your record to that person. If
you find multiple matches, you can
ask nFS to combine the duplicates,
and then link your record with the combined nFS person.
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Linking and Synchronizing Groups
(Requires the Full version of Ancestral Quest)
 The
Synchronize Groups tool can be used to process
groups of individuals. Use
the Advanced Filtering screen (PAF users will be familiar with this screen) to select the group,
then have AQ match each member of the group with nFS. As AQ communicates with nFS, it
categorizes each person in your group as matched or not matched, so you can deal
with similar records in the next phase.
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 Within the Matches windows, you can select those individuals that you expect to be the same between your database and FamilySearch. You can then further confirm your theories
and combine duplicates on nFS by clicking the Preview button; this takes you to the Link Individual with FamilySearch window (described above) where you can more closely examine the records to determine the accuracy of the match and perform the sync.
In
the ‘Not Matched’ categories, you can add your records to nFS, or perform
secondary searches to attempt to find and match with records on nFS.
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Review Individuals and Synchronize Families
Either during the linking process, or by clicking on a blue FamilySearch icon later, you can use the Review Individual screen to compare
your local record (on the left) with the corresponding data found on
FamilySearch (on the right). You will use this screen frequently when
working with new FamilySearch. You can exchange data and notes between your record and the
corresponding record on nFS.
From this Review Individual screen, you can check for
additional nFS duplicates, synchronize families, and even delete the nFS person.
You can click on any nFS data item to see more details about it, including
sources.
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While you review families, you can link family members in your file with
corresponding family members in nFS. If nFS has duplicate family members, you
can easily combine them from this screen. You can also trade relationship data
such as marriage data and parent-child relationship data.
If your local family has children or spouses not in the nFS family, you can add them to
nFS, and if the nFS family has children or spouses that you are missing in your local file,
you can directly import them.
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Direct Import from nFS
If you are just starting out, you may want to download your ancestry from nFS.
You can select yourself, or anyone else, as a starting person and download as
many generations of ancestors as you like. Just be aware that the information on
nFS is not perfect, so you might want to use this feature with a very watchful
eye.
Many users find this feature helpful in cleaning up the family tree of nFS.
They will download a line of ancestors into a temporary file, then use the screens
they are familiar with in AQ or PAF to more quickly spot any duplicates or other
problems in the nFS data than they could by using the nFS online system.
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Obviously, there are additional features and additional details. This brief presentation should
give you a general idea of the features within Ancestral Quest for working with the family tree of new.FamilySearch.org.
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