Family Tree Validator

Ensure your family's information on FamilySearch is correct and complete. Validator makes this quick and easy.

Family Tree Validator - Verify and correct your family's information on FamilySearch

Family Tree Validator is a Chrome extension that helps you find inconsistencies, errors, and missing data in your family's tree. It offers suggestions for improving your family's information on FamilySearch, making the process quick and easy.
Install from Chrome Web Store

Extension stats

Users: 236
-21
Rating: 5.00
(3)
Version: 24.05.13 (12/13/2024) (Last updated: 2024-12-16)
Creation date: 2023-07-16
Risk impact: Moderate risk impact
Risk likelihood:
Manifest version: 3
Permissions:
  • tabs
  • activeTab
  • storage
  • alarms
Host permissions:
  • https://*.familysearch.org/*
  • https://*.findmyroots.tech/*
Size: 684.03K

Other platforms

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Not available on Firefox
Not available on Edge
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Extension summary

The purpose of the Family Tree Validator is to find inconsistencies, errors, missing data in your family's tree. Because these errors are under the surface, you may not even be aware that anything is wrong. It will make suggestions that may help FamilySearch find additional matches. It will find simple cleanup items like date and location inconsistencies. Best of all, it makes fixing these simple issues fast and easy!

Validator checks that the information currently in FamilySearch about your family is 'reasonable'. That means common sense tests are applied EVERYWHERE (and if I've missed some, please let me know). It checks all of the information currently available, comparing husband and wife, children, parents and siblings. The extension further checks each attached source record that the information was fully added into FamilySearch. This saves you massive time in doing this review yourself!

TO BEGIN: Install the extension and then return to FamilySearch and login. As you access a person's page, click on the Validator icon in the upper right of your browser. (If you don't see the icon, click on the extension icon - looks like a puzzle piece - and then on the 'pin' next to Family Tree Validator.) The person's name will appear on a small popup window. To validate them, simply click on the "Validate This Person" button. During Validation, the person and their family will be displayed on a separate Progress page, along with any information about them that needs to be reviewed.

To help you with your use of Validator, full help and suggestions are located on our website FindMyRoots.tech/help. Once you are comfortable with the Family Tree Validator's default operation, go to the options page (right-click on the green check icon in the upper right) to change the suggestions Validator makes. Validation should be viewed as a process rather than an event. As items are corrected and added, FamilySearch may find more items to be added to your tree.

Lastly, we appreciate your use of the Family Tree Validator as it continues to grow and be enhanced. However, despite best our efforts to make everything work as expected, you may find issues in its use. We believe the potential benefits far outweigh any problems that may occur. Please report any errors, items missed, things that could be checked, or plain old suggestions to [email protected] or on our website FindMyRoots.tech/support..

User reviews

I am loving this extension for Chrome! It makes it so easy to find errors in profiles, as well as standardize common issues such as dates and places. I really like that you can have it run a validation process on family groups and not just an individual. It saves me so much time when I can take care of an entire family rather than looking at it person by person. The developer is amazing in that he is constantly making improvements to the extension as he sees the necessity. I recommend this to all the people I meet in the Family Search Center, where I volunteer, as well as the German Genealogy Group, where I am a member.
by Eileen Swanberg, 2024-11-28

When you are dealing with hundreds or even thousands of profiles on FamilySearch, you have to keep track of an exponentially larger number of facts and sources. Managing all of this is tedious on the FamilySearch website (as amazing as it is!). You could rely on a desktop application like RootsMagic that syncs with it, but the process is slow and navigating is not very intuiting. But with Family Tree Validator you can skip those options and perform changes across profiles in a family group fast and easy! It takes away the tedium of inspecting each fact manually by doing the work for you and putting together a report. You can easily see what its recommending and better yet, you can fix it directly from the report with the click of a button. Of course, its on us to use it carefully and pay attention to the recommendations, make sure we agree. But it's undoubtedly an incredible productivity boost! In the short time I've been trying it out, I can see how I will likely become so dependent on this to double-check my work.
by Andres Sulleiro, 2024-10-25

I'm a stickler for detail and consistency in how historical records are presented. And when it comes to something like family history records on FamilySearch.org (or similar genealogy sites) I do like dates and places to use a uniform standard. Family Tree Validator is the first 'program' I've found that makes it easy to take existing data and with, literally, a click of the mouse, change that data into a uniform and consistent format. A '2 Feb 1921' or '2/2/1921' or 'Feb 2, 1921' or 'February 2, 1921', etc quickly becomes 2 February 1921 in the FamilySearch record. FTV takes what someone entered for a place and changes it to the FamilySearch standardized place. It adds a county when needed, adds the country, changes the spelling when needed and makes other such changes. You start by selecting a person in FamilySearch. Starting with that person, FTV checks others in your family tree. You decide how many generations up or down the line you want it to check. You can even tell it how many generations of in-laws you want it to check. Want it to look at the sources cited for a person and see if there is any information in the source that hasn't been entered in FamilySearch? Done. What it to look in those sources for a person's religion, ethnicity, occupation, or nationality? Done. Interested in know if FamilySearch has flagged possible duplicates for a person. Done. FTV also looks at sources that have been entered and lets you know when there is an inconsistency between the data entered in FamilySearch and the data in the source material. And the list goes on and on. Why do I like it? It's fast. It lets me make changes with the click on a 'Fix It' button. It helps me identify data that may just be wrong. It helps me find inconsistencies and often lets me fix that data quickly. And it even helps me identify possible research that may be needed. Yes, other dedicated genealogy programs can identify problems. But I've not found anything else that makes it so easy to fix so many of those problems. So, if you want your family members on FamilySearch to have dates and places, etc that are entered in FamilySearch's standardized formats, this is the way to do it.
by Walter Bristow, 2024-09-22
View all user reviews

Extension safety

Risk impact

Family Tree Validator requires a few sensitive permissions. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk likelihood

Family Tree Validator has earned a good reputation and can be trusted.

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