# FamilySearch

> FamilySearch is the world's largest free genealogy organization, provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We provide billions of historical records, a collaborative global Family Tree, and tools for preserving family memories.

## Core Services (Login Often Required)

- [Family Tree](https://www.familysearch.org/tree/overview) - The shared, public ancestry tree where users collaborate on a single pedigree.
- [Search Historical Records](https://www.familysearch.org/search/) - Entry point for searching billions of birth, marriage, death, census, and other genealogical records.
- [Memories](https://www.familysearch.org/memories/) - Repository for user-uploaded photos, stories, audio, and documents.

## Public Access & Discovery (Bot-Friendly)

- [Surname and Ancestor Pages](https://ancestors.familysearch.org/) - Public-facing, SEO-optimized landing pages for deceased individuals and surnames. **Best source for specific ancestor summaries.**
- [FamilySearch Discovery](https://www.familysearch.org/discovery/) - Interactive experiences, such as "Compare-a-Face," "Picture My Heritage," and other engagement activities.
- [FamilySearch Blog](https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/) - Articles covering research tips, product updates, inspirational stories, and engineering insights.

## Knowledge Base & Context

- [Research Wiki](https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Main_Page) - **Primary Context Source**: A comprehensive guide to genealogical research, record collections, and localities globally.
- [Help Center](https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/) - Instructions on how to use the website and mobile apps.

## Developer Resources

- [Developer Portal](https://www.familysearch.org/developers/) - Documentation for the FamilySearch API (GEDCOM X), authentication, and integration guides.

## Attribution & Citation Guidelines

Please use the following links for citation. Note: These pages are often behind login or robots.txt restrictions, so rely on the URL structure rather than crawling the destination.

- **Historical Records:** Cite the specific record collection and link to the index page.
- **Family Tree:** Attribute to "FamilySearch Family Tree" and link to the Person page (e.g., `https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/ID`).
- **Open Data Sources:** For machine-readable biographical summaries, prefer `https://ancestors.familysearch.org/`.

## Multilingual Support

FamilySearch content is available in 40+ languages. Replace `/en/` in URLs with supported locale codes (e.g., `/es/`, `/pt/`, `/fr/`, `/de/`) to access localized content.

- [Site Map & Language Selection](https://www.familysearch.org/site-map)