TIP #1: How to find who you're looking for:

Quick Search: From the Home Page, you can perform a quick search for a person by entering the person's name. For married females, enter her maiden name in the "Last Name" field. If you don't know her maiden name, then click on "Advanced Search".

Advanced Search: The Advanced Search function is the best way to find anyone in the Family Tree if you don't know the exact name of the individual. For example, if you're searching for a married female but don't know her maiden name, change the "Gender" field to "female" and put her married name in the "Spouses Last Name" field.

You can also search other events by clicking on the "Other Events" link. For instance, you could search for all people in the Family who were known Baptists (put "Baptist" in the 'Religion' event's 'Fact' field), or all people who were known farmers (put "farmer" in the 'Occupation' event's 'Fact' field).

Search by Browsing: Don't know exactly who you're looking for? Try browsing by surname by clicking the "Surnames" link under "Browse" section in the menu on the left side of the screen.

TIP #2: How to find an individual’s Ancestors

Once you locate an individual, the easiest method is to press the Ancestors tab. This will show you a graphical display of both the paternal and maternal ancestors.

Once you have the ancestor chart displayed, you can click on the arrows located at the far right ancestor if you need to see additional ancestors. There are a number of formats for you to choose from (Standard, Compact, Box, Text, Ahnentafel, and Media) to display ancestors. Try clicking on the various options and see which one works best for you.

TIP #3: How to make a custom list of YOUR ancestors

Would you like to see a custom listing of all of YOUR ancestors? Here's how you do it:

Search for your own name Click on the link for yourself Click the tab "ancestors" Set the "Generations" level to "12" (or higher if you want) Click on the "Media" link

TIP #4: How to find an individual’s Descendants

The Decendants tab displays the children and grandchildren of an individual.

* UPDATE! * The Decendants tab has been recently enhanced to include "standard" and "compact" graphical format. Other formats include "text" and "register". From these formats, click on the "" icon to see a different graphic representation of the decendant tree.

TIP #5: How to tell if two individuals are related

The Relationship tab will show a graphic display of all the people between two relatives. To use this function, locate the first individual and then press the Relationship tab. Then use the find button to locate the second person to be displayed. Once you have the two people selected click the calculate button to display their relationship.

TIP #6: How to report errors

The suggestion tab allows you to send corrections, updates, comments or any other information to the database administrator. Information on which individual you are referencing is automatically attached to the message when you make a suggestion using the Suggestion tab. The database administrator will take your suggestion and add it to the database in the next web update cycle.

TIP #7: How to print

Just click on the Print link locate above the control tabs. A format that is simplified for printing is presented and you can use the print function of you browser to print the page.