Frequently asked questions

Family Group Trees are a new type of family group on FamilySearch. They allow FamilySearch to share a family tree with their living family members.

For more information, go to What are family group trees?

Family Group Trees benefit families who want to see each other's information in Family Tree. They can collaborate and share important life events, photos, stories, and sources about themselves and each other.

As a precaution to protect children and youth, only users over 18 can create a group. However, all users can participate in Family Group Trees. Users younger than 18 can be designated as administrators after a group has been created.

Your ward can have a family group that is used for sharing ordinances. However, please do not turn on Family Group Trees option for a ward group. Ward members are not related to each other enough to benefit from a Family Group Tree.

A Family Group Tree can have both members and public users. Church members will see both the tree and temple-related features. Public users will see the same tree but not the temple-related features.

A family group is a group that allows a user to either share ordinances, collaborate on a Family Group Tree, or both.

A Family Group Tree is a tree that is shared with the members of your group and allows all its members to collaborate and see the same living people.

It absolutely is possible to add a Family Group Tree to your existing family group!

Yes, you can be multiple Family Group Trees.

Currently, you can view only one Family Group Tree at a time within your browser. You cannot, for example, open one family group tree in one browser tab and display a different group tree in another tab in that same browser.

If you want to open more than one Family Group Tree at a time, open them in different browsers such as one tree in Chrome and the other in Firefox.

In a Family Group Tree, you can use the same tree-related features that are available when you use the public tree, including sources, record hints, time line, memories, notes, and so forth.

A few Family Tree features are not available for living people in Family Tree, regardless of whether they are in a private tree or Family Group Tree:

• Ordinance information about living people
• Discussions
• Find
• Follow and following list

If you participated in earlier testing for Family Group Trees, you may be wondering what is new.

For more information, go to What is new in Family Group Trees?

Family Group Trees are intended for living family, so it does not make sense to reserve ordinances from within family group tree.

There will be one exception in the future. Reserving ordinances for confidential deceased persons in a Family Group Tree is not working currently, but we hope to have this available in the future.

A family group can have up to 500 participants.

There are no limits on the number of people who can be added to the Family Group Tree.

If you do not yet have a family group with whom you want to share a Family Group Tree, you can create one.

For more information, go to How do I create a new family group with a Family Group Tree?

If you are an administrator of a family group, you can turn on a Family Group Tree for an existing group.

For more information, go to How do I add a Family Group Tree to an existing family group?

A family group can have up to 3 administrators. We recommend that each family group has at least 2 administrators.

The person who creates a group is automatically its first administrator. Administrators give administration rights to other group members.

For more information, go to How do I give administration rights in a family group?

Group administrators can edit a family group’s name, photo, description, and group rules.

For more information, go to How do I edit a family group’s name, photo, description, and group rules?

Users must be 18 or older to create a family group. The age calculation is determined using your FamilySearch account, not your Family Tree record. To fix it, go to your FamilySearch account settings and add a birth date.

If you are a Family Group Tree administrator and you are removed as an administrator or die, other group members' ability to use the group and group tree will not change. Group members will still be able to use the group except for the administrator functions.

To regain administration functions, a group member will need to contact FamilySearch support, who would assign a new group administrator.

To avoid needing to do this, we recommend that each family group has at least two administrators.

Send messages to group members using FamilySearch Chat.

For more information, go to How do I send a message to a family group?

During the Family Group Tree pilot, users may receive an invitation to join a group that is testing a new family group tree feature.

For more information, go to How do I join a family group?

Group administrators can delete a group:

1. On the group details screen, click on the Group Members tab.
2. Remove all of the group members except yourself:
   
   1. For each user, click on the 3 vertical dots on the right side of the row
   2. Click the option to remove the group member.
3. Click the three vertical dots by your name, and select the option to leave the group. You will get message asking you to confirm that you want to delete the group.

Family members can gain access to a family group tree by being a member of the family group that maintains the tree.

For more information, go to How do I invite others to the family group and be part of the Family Group Tree?

For a Family Group Tree, group members need to be associated with a tree person. A single-use invitation link allows this association to work for each user invited to the group. It also helps keep the group private since you know exactly who is invited and who accepts the invitation to join the group.

You can leave a family group easily if you no longer want to participate in the Family Group Tree preview.

For more information, go to How do I leave a family group?

Group administrators can remove a participant of a family group.

For more information, go to How do I remove someone from a family group?

To create a Family Group Tree, a group administrator can either create a new group or turn on a tree for one of your existing groups.

For more information, go to the article How do I create a Family Group Tree?

Group participants can add people to a Family Group Tree by either typing the information in or copying from their private list.

For more information, go to How do I add new people to a Family Group Tree?

All group members can see and edit all of the information about you as it is displayed on your Family Tree person page. Family Tree does not display ordinances for living people, so you will not see that information about yourself or any other living person.

To change how your name and contact information appears to other FamilySearch users, please visit your FamilySearch user profile and account settings.

All participants in a family group can both see and edit all information in the Family Group Tree.

For more information, go to the article Who can see and edit people in a Family Group Tree?

Beneath the FamilySearch logo, in the upper-left section of your screen, you will find a new selector that identifies which tree you are viewing and lets switch between your private tree and your Family Group Trees.

The starting person appears in the main position of Family Group Tree when it is first opened.

As users join the group, they select the person who represents them in the tree. This selection becomes that user's default starting person.

Each user can change their starting person. See How do I set the starting person in a Family Group Tree?

When you add a person to a Family Group Tree, you might create duplicate records, and that is OK.

If the same person appears more than once within the same Family Group Tree, you can use the Merge By ID feature to merge them.


If the duplicates are in different trees, they cannot be merged. For example, you cannot merge the record of yourself from your private tree with the record of yourself in a Family Group Tree.

Ordinances for living persons are not visible to users even in a group. However, the ordinances are copied for a living person into a group with the need to have that information available if the person is changed to Deceased and record is merged with the record containing the ordinance data.

GEDCOM imports are not available at this time.

See all help articles about Family Group Trees.

To keep up with all that is happening in Family Group Trees, please join the Family Group Tree community.

We also have a list of known issues and planned upgrades.

We provide several ideas on our what to test suggestion list.