When I ask an individual whether they have their four-generations completed (which includes yourself, your parents, grandparents, and your great-grandparents), the response I frequently get is one of two responses: “Oh, my (aunt, grandma, or insert random family member here) is my family’s genealogist. I’m sure he/she has done it all.”  Or, “My family has been traced back to Adam and Eve. There’s no more work to be done!”  To those I say: Phony baloney and super lame excuse.  Neither one of those is following President Nelson’s call to assist in the gathering of Israel through this great work of family history. Nor does it seem either of those responses are interested in receiving the promised blessings of family history research in their lives.

Elder Renlund said that “when we gather our family histories and go to the temple on behalf of our ancestors, God fulfills promised blessings simultaneously on both sides of the veil. “ He also said that one of the blessings we can receive is “increased love and appreciation for our ancestors and living relatives, so we no longer feel alone.”

To aid in this call, new and useful features are added to FamilySearch so that we can not only gather Israel but get to know our individual ancestors as well. One of these recently released features is the six new views of the Fan Chart in FamilySearch which help us to see how rich our family history is documented, or is not and to identify opportunities for us to personally add to their memories and stories.

Birth Country: This displays colored backgrounds for the names in the chart that correspond to the Birth Country legend in the upper right of the screen. This can be useful in identifying ancestors who have birth locations that may not align with parents, or children.

Sources: This displays colored backgrounds for names in the chart, indicating the approximate number of sources recorded for each person, as noted in the Sources legend in the upper right of the screen. This can be useful in identifying ancestors who have few or no sources recorded.

Stories: This displays colored backgrounds for names in the chart, indicating the approximate number of stories recorded for each person, as noted in the Stories legend. This can be useful in identifying ancestors who have few or no stories recorded in Memories.

Photos: This displays colored backgrounds for names in the chart, indicating the approximate number of stories recorded for each person, as noted in the Photos legend. This can be useful in identifying ancestors who have few or no photos recorded in Memories.

Research Helps: This displays colored backgrounds for names in the chart, indicating possible data problems, record hints, or research suggestions, as noted in the Research Helps legend. This can be useful in identifying opportunities to either fix things in your tree or quickly add to it using automated hints provided by FamilySearch.

Ordinances: This displays colored backgrounds for names in the chart, indicating where ordinances are available, in progress, or where the individual needs more information for the ordinances to become available. This can be useful in easily identifying opportunities for temple work. –Aimee McDaniel