Adding Memories at FamilySearch

Here we will look at how to add photos, obituaries, documents, family histories or records, audio clips and other items into FamilySearch and assign them to one or more people that are in the tree at FamilySearch. You may need to add new people as assign people associated with your document. You can find details in a previous discussion.

• First, in your browser, enter in https://www.familysearch.org.
• Click on the Sign In button (assuming that you have an account already - otherwise choose the Free Account button)
• Across the top are four menu items: Family Tree (the tree that includess you and the people you have added or are connected to you); Search (within your tree, various records, books, wiki, and other sources); Memories (our target); and Indexing (opportunity to index records like census records, birth records, and so on). Choose Memories item (or one of its menu items, if desired).
• This page gives you some choices. You can choose to click the "Add Memories" button, which will take you to the Gallery view or below this you can choose to go directly to the Gallery view or the List view (the former is visual while the latter is in list form), or may be presented a list of memories that others have submitted for people in your family (assuming that you have yourself within a tree). You can either view a person presented or choose to See More People (from which you choose to show the default of Close Relatives, All, Added By Me, or Not Attached to Family Tree). The rest of the main Memories page provides some other information, including how to obtain an app for a smart phone or tablet for iOS or Android, which work really nicely.
• From the main Memories page, choose going to the Gallery view. Note that in doing so, below the top-level menu described above (Family Tree, Search, Memories, Indexing), there is a new a collection of submenus: Overview (the initial page seen above); Gallery (where we are now); People (same as clicking on See More People described above); and Find (search within memories for names or other items).
• In the Gallery view, below this is another line of choices: All (lists all items of yours); photo icon (shows your submitted photos); book icon (shows your submitted stories); document icon (shows your submitted documents); microphone icon (shows your submitted audio files); Big Green + sign (means to add a memory); menu for sorting the arrangment; block of squares icon (use Gallery view); list icon (use List view); magnifying glass (search)
• First, let's look at how to modify a document. Choose a photo that contains some people by selecting it and double-clicking. You then can add the names to each person, the date of the event, the place of the event, a description, an associated story, add a comment or add it to an album. I will do so with a photo of some family members at a cemetery (Burial of Edna Westphal Hibbard).
• These same steps can be done a story or other document. I will show how this is done with an obituary that is a transcription of an image (ObitHibbardJesseEdmund1981).
• Let's walk through the steps to add a text file of an obituary.
• • Click on the big green + icon.
  • Right now there seems to be a bug in that while a text file can be dragged into this window to submit it, it can not be chosen by using the Choose Files button where one can search for a particular file. Obtain your file by dragging or choosing. Note that there is a check box to have the title be the same as the file name. (I will do so with the obituary for Harry Salisbury and Katheryn Sasse.)
  • If you did not choose the checkmark, first assign a title to your uploaded document or story or photo.
  • Now that it is uploaded, perform steps as given above. Additionally, you can move it into an album; more below on this.
• Note that when one is in either the Gallery or List view, there is always another set of filters on the far left. Here is a description: My Memories consists of those that you have recently loaded and are still needing to be processed; My Archive is intended to be the place to store your memories after you have assigned dates, places, names associated and so on. To move an item, right click (or control click) on a memory and choose to move it to your My Archive. Note that every memory is in either My Memories or My Archive. My Favorites is where you can assign those that are your favorites. You seem to be only able to assign to favorites when you are actually viewing the memory by using the heart menu at the top of the window. Recently Deleted contains those that you have recently deleted; I am not sure how soon they are swept out if they are not "recent". Finally, you can further subdivide your memories by placing them in folders using years, names, types or whatever category you wish. This does not interfere with whether the memory is archived or not. The best way to think of these albums is that they are really tags (a la Gmail or Evernote) as opposed to fixed folders. In other words, a single memory can be in multiple albums.
• Finally, FamilySearch has good help pages. Here is the page for Memories at this site.
• Enjoy!