Frequently asked questions

Family Tree Explorer

Is Family Tree Explorer free?

Yes, building and storing your family tree with Family Tree Explorer is free on findmypast.

With Family Tree Explorer you can:

• Create 2 separate family trees
• Add photos, images and scans of your records, photos and certificates
• Store 25,000 individuals per family tree
• See full ancestry, descendant and full family views
• Instantly receive enhancements as they happen – never pay for upgrades
• Enjoy fully Windows, Mac OSX and Linux compatibility
• Save your family tree on our secure servers.
• Receive 200 mb media storage for scanned documents, certificates, photos, film and audio clips to be added to your family tree
• Access your latest research from any computer with an internet connection

How do I build my family tree?

Family Tree Explorer contains inbuilt help and also a live help feature, to help guide you through and get your family tree growing in all directions.

Start building your tree now

Why is Family Tree Explorer not displaying correctly?

If you are using Windows then please follow the below steps to adjust your screen resolution:

• Right click on your desktop and select ‘properties’ from the list that appears. The ‘Display Properties’ window will now open.
• Within ‘Display Properties’ select the ‘Settings’ tab.
• Drag the ‘Screen resolution’ scroll bar to the right so that ‘1024 by 768 pixels’ is selected.
• Click ‘apply’, then ‘OK’.
• The ‘Display Properties’ Window will close and you will then need to restart your computer.

Is ‘Flash’ safe?

Adobe Flash Player was created with security measures in mind, to help ensure a safe and secure browsing experience. You can install the plug-in safely without worrying about any warning messages received.

• Flash Player is not “spy-ware,” in that Adobe doesn't track or report your Internet activities or anything that you do on your computer.
• Flash Player is not “ad-ware,” in that Adobe doesn’t collect or sell any personal or private information about you or your computer. See our privacy policy
• Flash Player has been included with Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh computers for many years.
• Flash Player is already installed on more than 450 million computers, or about 98% of computers connected to the web.
• Flash Player has been used since 1995 in millions of pages across the Internet. Its usage is quite varied including animation, video, games, applications and more.
• You have control over the privacy settings within Flash Player, once it is installed on your computer.

It is important to note that most of today’s web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera come with Flash Player already installed.

How do I import my GEDCOM?

You will need to extract your previous family tree into a GEDCOM file. When have the file and you create a new tree on findmypast.com, in step 1, you will have the option to import the GEDCOM file. If you have already created two trees then one will need to be deleted in order to create the new tree.

Can I print my tree?

You cannot currently print your family tree on the site at this time. However, this feature is forthcoming. You will be able to print any of the views shown in the bottom part of the screen as well as standard reports in PDF format including Pedigree Chart and Family Group Records.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

What does ‘public’ and ‘private’ mean?

At this time, all trees are effectively private. Private trees are not accessible in any manner by the general public, as access is restricted to the owner and any other users that they specifically invite to view their tree.

However, future plans include a public search on the site to search through data contained in all public trees. This option is included now so that customers may pre-emptively opt out.

Can I view the whole tree in one go?

You cannot view the whole of your tree in one go on the family tree builder software. You must instead select one person and you are then able to view only their direct ancestors and descendants (i.e. their children, their parents, their children’s children, their parents’ parents, etc)

Although this makes sense for a small tree, it is just not logistically possible to display that much information in an understandable format once your tree gets past say thirty families or over a few generations.

There are a lot of complexities including calculation limitations in the Flash that make this much more difficult than it would appear at first glance. Rather than building a cut off point where a user would suddenly no longer be able to view their entire tree, we have decided to make the user learn how to use the three view options that are currently available.

The short answer is that this is not possible, however, in practice, by selecting the correct view from the correct person in the tree, a large portion, if not all of the tree should be visible.