Linking to the FamilySearch Tree

FamilySearch recently did a quiet launch of ancestors.familysearch.org - a publicly viewable version of the Tree. Only a small portion of the Tree is currently available but that should grow in the coming months. For now, we've tried to publish the most popular ancestors. Check out the surname directory to find your ancestors. We're still working with the major search engines to make all the pages available that way. It turns out it isn't a simple thing to get Google and the others to crawl through millions and millions of web pages. :-)

FamilySearch has two goals in making this data available. First, to provide a linkable reference that everyone on the internet can use when referring to specific persons in history. The FamilySearch Tree is the largest online Family Tree and is the most "sourced" Tree. It has more primary sources linked to its record than any other.

Second, we're trying to get the word out about the great resources that FamilySearch provides to the world for free.

A few notes about these new "public ancestor" pages:

• Only about 15 million ancestors are currently available. That is a lot but it only comprises about 1.5% of the Tree that is available to users after they login.
• Only dead ancestors that are "public" are available. There are some other restrictions also due to geopolitical and cultural issues.
• Not all information is shown on the public pages. You must create a free account and login to FamilySearch to see the "non-vital" information about the ancestor: other names, facts, events, sources, pictures, stories, and memories.