JAWS (Job Access with Speech) is a screen reader that helps blind or visually impaired users access FamilySearch. JAWS allows these users to hear information about people, add new people to Family Tree, add marriage events, and more.
To add a person to Family Tree from the Person page using JAWS, perform the following steps:
- Sign in to Family Tree at https://familysearch.org/tree.
- Go to the Person page for the person to whom you want to add a family member. You can navigate to the Person page by using the Find link or the Recents list. You can also find a person on Family Tree.
- Move to the Family Members section by pressing ‘H’ repeatedly or with the JAWS Virtual Find command.
- Two subsections are present under Family Members. These subsections are Spouses and Children and Parents and Siblings. Both of these are headings. To add a spouse or child, press H once to move to the Spouses and Children section. To add a parent or sibling, press H twice to move to the Parents and Siblings section.
- Move to the button for the type of person being added, and activate it by pressing Space Bar. You can add spouses, children, or parents with the Add Spouse, Add Child, or Add Parent buttons respectively. You can find the correct button to select by using the JAWS reading keys or with the JAWS Virtual Find command. If you are adding the first spouse for an existing person, use the Add Spouse button closest to the person already present. If you are adding a second spouse, use the Add Spouse button shown after the children section. When adding the first parent for a child, use the Add Parent button. When adding the second parent for the child, use the Add Spouse button next to the existing parent.
- After activating the button for the type of person being added, the Add Person screen is available. This screen contains fields for vital information about the person. By default, the First Name field is listed first. If JAWS does not default to this field, press E until you hear First Name and press Enter to go into Forms mode. The Fields include: By Name/ID, Language, Title, First and Middle Name, Last Name, Sex, Living Status, birth date, birth place, death date, and death place. The sex, living status, name/ID, and language fields are radio buttons. Use the Up and Down Arrow keys to change the value for these buttons and select the desired choice with the Spacebar. The By ID radio button is selected when adding a relationship for a person already present on Family Tree. All of the other fields are text fields. The name, sex, and living status are required. Press Tab repeatedly to move through the fields and enter the specified information.
- After entering all of the information you know about the person, press Tab until you hear Next and then press Spacebar to activate this button.
- The screen refreshes with the results found. Press H a few times to find the status for the person you are creating.
- If a record for the person is not present, the message "No matching Records Found" is displayed. To create the person, move to the Create button and press the Spacebar. This button can be located with the JAWS Virtual Find command or by pressing B two times.
- If matches for the person being created are found, the message "Possible matching records are Found" is displayed along with a summary for the matching records. Use the JAWS reading keys to review the matching records.
- If you find a matching record, press the Spacebar on the Add Person button below the person’s summary information. If none of the records match, move to the Create button and press the Spacebar to create the person. The Create button can be quickly located with the JAWS Virtual Find command.
- After the new person is added, the Person page is displayed, by default, to where the person added is present. The message “Success Message: Relationship Successfully Created” is also displayed.
JAWS commands referenced in this article include:
- B: Move to next button.
- E: Move to next edit field.
- H: Move to next heading.
- Insert +F7: Bring up a dialog box with a list of all links present on the page.
- Insert +Control +F: Activate JAWS virtual find dialog.
- Enter: Activate the link in focus or go into Forms mode.
- Spacebar: Activate button or change the state of the check box or radio button in focus.