How To Puzzilla

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Videos

• Grooming Your Family Trees
• Search 10 Hints for Superhints
• New Person Hints
• Basic Services: How To Puzzilla
• Finding Our Cousins: Introduction to Puzzilla.org
• Elder Neil L. Andersen, Find Our Cousins, Family Discovery Day Devotional, Rootstech Conference 2014
• Finding Herman, The Research Process: Collateral Lines In FamilySearch

Read And Download Tutorials

New Person Hints Tutorial

Basic Services Beginner Tutorial

Descendant Viewer: Research Patterns in FamilyTree Collateral Lines.

The Puzzilla Descendants Viewer uses compact symbols to reveal new areas for research in descendants of ancestors in the FamilyTree database. Where you see a family of children with no children of their own, chances are that more research will uncover their children and open up new descendant lines.

• Move the pointer across the symbols to browse the names and details that appear in the popup box.
• Click or touch on a symbol to freeze the popup box on the selected person and allow clicking inside the box.
• Click on the View Descendants or View Ancestors button to view descendants or ancestors of the selected person.
• Click on View In FamilyTree to see details for that person in FamilyTree.
• Click a different person to see that person's details, or click the X to close the popup and return to browse mode.
• You can make the marked records easier to see by hiding the marks for Died Before 16 and Born within 110. This is done by clicking the corresponding buttons in the control panel. This will draw lines and symbols in a lighter shade to make records with selected properties stand out.
• The path at the bottom of the control panel lists the chain of relations between the selected person and the person at the root of the tree. Copy the relationship path and paste it into your research notes so you can remember the relationship to the selected person. You will want to record the path from both the ancestor and descendant charts.
• Click the 'X' close button in the upper right corner to un-freeze the box and return to browse mode.

  Step by step instructions based on the How To Puzzilla video tutorial. Download, print, and use as a checklist.

Basic Instructions

1. Go to the Puzzilla.org home page.
2. Click on the 'Sign In' box in the upper right corner. This prompts you to sign in to your FamilySearch account.
3. On the FamilySearch sign-in page, enter your FamilySearch credentials and click "Sign In". FamilySearch gives Puzzilla a single-use token to access your FamilyTree data without compromising your FamilySearch user Id and password. If you do not have a FamilySearch account you can click on "Create An Account" to obtain one for free; however, new accounts are not initially linked to a pedigree.
4. Once you are signed in, if your account is linked to a pedigree, a pedigree will appear on the right side of the page with yourself shown at the root of the pedigree.
5. Follow the instructions above to select an ancestor and view descendants.
6. Search for patterns showing multiple children without descendants. These often indicate areas where prior research is incomplete.
7. Select a descendant and click to view that person in FamilyTree.
8. In FamilyTree, look on the right side for 'Research Help' and click 'Search Records'. This searches for historic records for that descendant and takes you to the Search Results page. Tune your searches by adjusting the search parameters and by selecting specific collections.
9. Compare the descendant's details in FamilyTree to the records in the Search Results. If they match, you have found historic record information about the descendant. Add the new record to your sources, and add spouse, children, and parents to the descendant in FamilyTree.
10. You may need more information to determine whether they match. Puzzles require multiple pieces to complete the picture. Find multiple historic records to complete and confirm the details about your relatives.
11. Zoom and pan the chart by pinch and drag gestures on a a touch device, or by using your mouse scroll wheel and mouse drag gestures on a desktop.
12. Zoom the webpage using Ctrl+ or Ctrl- . Hold down the control key and press the plus key. Ctrl-minus zooms out. Ctrl-0 returns to default size. On Mac, use the command key instead of the control key.
13. New Puzzilla requests wait until prior requests have finished retrieval. If your browser is overwhelmed by retrieving too many records, stop further requests by closing your browser, then sign in again. It may take a few minutes for FamilyTree to clear old requests and begin serving new requests again.

Control Panel Instructions

1. The name and ID number at the top indicate the person at the root (center or bottom) of the tree.
2. Change the number in the Generations field to show more or fewer generations. Each additional generation takes increasingly more time to download. Browser, memory, and computer resources limit the number of generations that can be viewed. You will move faster if you work with fewer generations on a page.
3. The 'Retrieving:' field shows how many persons have been requested and are still pending response from FamilyTree. This number increases and decreases as each generation is retrieved. Retrieval is finished when the number reaches zero.
4. To view a chart for a different person click the "Change ID" button, enter a FamilyTree ID in the "New ID" field (for example, "ZYXW-V12"), then press View Descendants or View Ancestors to view a chart for that person. An empty chart indicates there is no record for that ID.
5. Click the 'Refresh All Data' button to clear previously-retrieved data from the browser memory. This will cause Puzzilla to retrieve the latest information available from FamilyTree. All data is refreshed automatically when you sign in.