How to use Puzzilla to find your lost cousins

The Puzzilla Descendants Viewer (www.puzzilla.org) lets researchers see descendants in the FamilySearch.org FamilyTree database using compact symbols that reveal patterns in collateral-line research.

Ancestry chart for John Fisher in Puzzilla

• Open www.Puzzilla.org and log on with your FamilySearch signin. This will access your FamilyTree. (If you have never signed in to FamilySearch.org, you will need to register and connect to your ancestors in the database.)
• Move the pointer across the symbols to browse the names and details that appear in the popup box.
• Click on a symbol to freeze the popup box on the selected person and allow clicking inside the box.
• Click on the View Descendants button to view descendants of the selected person. Click on other buttons to see other views of the selected person.
• New in release 4 Beta: On the control panel, click on Hints, Attached Sources, My Changes, and Possible Duplicates and the other properties to mark records that have those properties. Be patient; retrieving this information from FamilyTree takes time. To see some results sooner, select a person on a branch of the tree and then click the property button. The properties will be retrieved sooner for only that person and their subtree.
  You can also make the marked records easier to see by hiding the marks for Died Before 16 and Born within 110. This is done by clicking the corresponding button in the control panel.
• The path at the bottom lists the chain of relationships between the selected person and the person at the root of the tree. Copy the relationship path to paste into your research notes so you can remember the relationship to the selected person. You will want to record the path from both the ancestor and descendant charts.
• Clicking on the 'X' close button in the upper right corner un-freezes the box and returns to browsing mode.

Videos

• Finding Our Cousins: Introduction to Puzzilla.org
• Finding Herman, The Research Process: Collateral Lines In FamilySearch

Click here to find out more about using Puzzilla. 

Puzzilla descendancy chart for David Kirkpatrick, b. 1827. John Fisher is the first blue square on the far right. 

You will have to register and signin to www.familysearch.org before you can use Puzzilla.

Ancestry.com and FamilySearch to Make a Billion Global Records Available Online

PROVO, Utah, Sep 05, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE via COMTEX) -- Ancestry.com and FamilySearch International (online at FamilySearch.org), the two largest providers of family history resources, announced today an agreement that is expected to make approximately 1 billion global historical records available online and more easily accessible to the public for the first time. With this long-term strategic agreement, the two services will work together with the archive community over the next five years to digitize, index and publish these records from the FamilySearch vault.

The access to the global collection of records marks a major investment in international content as Ancestry.com continues to invest in expanding family history interest in its current markets and worldwide. Ancestry.com expects to invest more than $60 million over the next five years in the project alongside thousands of hours of volunteer efforts facilitated by FamilySearch.

"This agreement sets a path for the future for Ancestry.com and FamilySearch to increasingly share international sets of records more collaboratively," said Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com. "A significant part of our vision for family history is helping provide a rich, engaging experience on a global scale. We are excited about the opportunities it will bring to help benefit the family history community and look forward to collaborating with FamilySearch to identify other opportunities to help people discover and share their family history."

The organizations will also be looking at other ways to share content across the two organizations. Both organizations expect to add to the already digitized records shared across the two websites in addition to new record projects to be completed over the next five years.

"We are excited to work with Ancestry.com on a vision we both share," said Dennis Brimhall, President of FamilySearch. "Expanding online access to historical records through this type of collaboration can help millions more people discover and share their family's history."

This marks a groundbreaking agreement between the two services. But the two organizations aren't strangers to working with each other; hundreds of millions of records have already been shared and are available on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The companies also announced in early 2013 an additional project where they plan to publish 140 million U.S. Wills & Probate images and indexes over the next three years--creating a national database of wills and other probate documents spanning 1800-1930 online for the very first time.

About Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com is the world's largest online family history resource with approximately 2.7 million paying subscribers across all its websites. More than 11 billion records have been added to the Ancestry.com sites and users have created more than 50 million family trees containing more than 5 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship site www.ancestry.com, the company operates several Ancestry international websites along with a suite of online family history brands, including Archives.com, Fold3.com and Newspapers.com, all designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,800 family history centers in 70 countries, including the renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.