In a RootsTech session this year, Joe Price, the director of the Linking Lab at BYU, described how his lab, through technology, links names from specific groups to people on the FamilySearch Family Tree.  One of his recent projects was creating a database of all Utahns who died in the 1918 flu epidemic using Utah death records.   Another important project is adding African American families to the FamilySearch tree through 1900 and 1910 census records.  This work is important because although approximately 70% of Caucasians who use FS can find relatives in their tree, only 4% of African Americans can!

He also explained how he has taught people with specific community ties to add people from a chosen locality and time period to the Family Tree.  For example, his son was a missionary in Washington state, so Brother Price selected a Washington county where his son had served and added people from that locality to the tree from the 1900 census. He further narrowed his search by only looking for people who were born between 1860 and 1900.

I thought I would try and add inhabitants living in 1881 in Stoke by Clare, Suffolk, England to the Family Tree!   My grandfather’s family had lived in this small village of about 500 people since about 1750.  My great grandfather Henry Frost came from a family of 13 children and most of them had married and remained in Stoke by Clare, so I have many family ties to this town. 

So, how do you do it?  Here are the steps I took:

• Choose a locality and time period  (I chose Stoke by Clare in the 1881 census. You could further narrow your search by choosing a specific birth time period such as 1841-1881)
• Go to FamilySearch, click on Search > Records and select the Record Collection in the Find a Collection search bar (I chose the England and Wales Census, 1881)
• From the collection’s Search bar, narrow your search. (I added a Residence place, Stoke by Clare, and date range 1875-1885)  You could search by birth or residence dates in the census records. 
• Click Search and a list of names of people will appear (For me it was all the people indexed in the 1881 census in Stoke by Clare). Bookmark this page for future easy access.
• Begin work on the first name in the list by going to the Family Tree Persons tab and selecting Recents.  At the bottom of your Recents list is an option to Add Unconnected Person.
• Type in the vital information you have from your census record list.
• If your person isn’t already in the tree, create him/her as a new person.
• After creating the new person, add the census record as a source and add and link all of the other family members from the census record using the source linker.
• If the person you select is already in the Family Tree, make sure the census record is attached to all family members, then go to the next person.
• Proceed methodically through the list of names until you have completed all the names in your locality and time period!

In his presentation, Brother Price explains that by adding people to the tree, we can help people just beginning their family histories.  It is much easier to start, if you already have relatives in the tree!   He suggested dedicating a little time each month to adding people to tree as a service to others doing family history research.  His explanation of the project and how to do it can be found at https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/rtc2021/session/community-reconstitution 

If you would like to do this, and need further help, feel free to contact me at mariannefbates@gmail.com . We can Zoom and I can help you!

• Marianne Bates – Temple and Family History Consultant, Granite Family History Center