Working with Family Trees

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Why should you build your family tree?

Building your family tree can inspire journeys that help you discover and connect with your family history. Learning about those who made your life possible can be a key to understanding yourself.
Building your family tree connects you with living and deceased relatives in Spain and in the USA.
Building your family tree provides a historical family legacy for generations to come.

Did you know your family tree has already been started?

If you are a descendant of Spanish Hawaiian immigrants, your family tree has already been started. The hyperlinks in the Ship Index include links to family trees in FamilySearch for all, more than 8,000, Spanish Hawaiian immigrants, including your ancestor. Simply go to the Ship Index page to find these links. If you have questions about how to find your ancestor, first review the detailed instructions and tips in English or Spanish and the Spanish surnames to find your way. If you already are a member of Ancestry.com, you will also find that 80% of the immigrants also have links to family trees on that platform. If you have started your own family tree in any software, or even on paper, these links on the Ship Index are likely to help you build on what you already have.

Building your own public family tree or adding records to a world tree are the recommended ways to get started in expanding your knowledge of your family history and finding cousins who can enrich the family experience. When you mark a person as living, their information is automatically protected. You may also build your tree only on your local computer, but that method is less likely to link you to cousins whom you don’t already know. If you are currently using a local computer-based software and want to share or switch, look for instructions for downloading your tree to a GEDCOM file which can be uploaded to Ancestry.com or My Heritage as you choose.

Which online family tree and DNA software should you use?

This is your choice and often the one you choose will become your favorite. We recommend using an online site to share with others and to find cousins. Four of the most popular family tree sites are elaborated upon below.
Online sites automatically hide information on living people. So, as long as a person in the tree is not accidentally marked as deceased, or tagged with a death date, all information on living people will be protected, including their names.
Conversely, you must not mark deceased people as living or others will not be able to see even their names. Better yet, enter death dates (or estimated death year) for deceased people.
We suggest you should consider the points below before deciding which family tree software is right for you.

Other Tips for Building Your Family Tree

Enter names as they appeared or would appear on birth certificates (See Spanish Surnames for those born in Spain). Add nicknames and “also known as” names in quotes in Ancestry, or under alternate names and/or married names in FamilySearch or MyHeritage.
Add birthdates and birthplaces to the extent known. That could be exact information, or less specific information such as state or country or year or even “about” year such as “about 1898”. Use the best information available. The more specific and accurate the information, the better to find and match existing information, but don’t make it up. It is better to leave it blank than to make it up.
Use YouTube for easy training sources and to avoid making a mess. Click on this link: youtube.com and type in the search bar “How to use FamilySearch” or “How to use Ancestry.com” or “How to use MyHeritage”
We have developed our own instructional videos which introduce you to working with person records and sources in Family Search starting with the Ship Index. Click the button below to see these SHHA specific YouTube videos.

HELP Videos

FamilySearch

Biggest advantages: FamilySearch is always free and linked to every emigrant on the ship manifest. It is the most widely used across the world. Source records are perhaps the most populous
FamilySearch is a world tree. World trees offer many advantages and disadvantages.
- Advantages: You can meet and chat with cousins, share memories, and build on work already accomplished by others.
- Disadvantages: It is open to editing by all other members which means it is not just your tree, and your work can be modified by others.
When you begin your account on FamilySearch you will add vital information about yourself, your parents and your grandparents. In a sense, the living people will be your “own private tree” as information on living people will not be visible to others. However, when you connect to deceased people already in FamilySearch, such as the emigrants, you enter the more publicly maintained FamilySearch world tree
You can find your family’s ancestors in FamilySearch by clicking on an F link in the Ship Index on your ancestors’ row and logging in to your free account. Many second and third generation Spanish Hawaiian descendants are also in FamilySearch
It is highly recommended that you complete self-service training before adding or editing PERSONS, because mistakes are easy to make on this world tree. See youtube.com training videos button above.
Make changes to existing PERSON records with great care and changes should be based on attached documents such as birth records, death records, marriage records and census records
Respect the work of others by viewing and evaluating alternate names and attached documents under SOURCES of existing PERSON records before assuming that existing information is incorrect.
After thorough review of each relevant PERSON record, you can add alternate names, and even PERSON records for unrecorded past and living family members to improve and complete your tree.

My Heritage

Is broadly used across Europe and is the most popular in Spain.
Perhaps even more than FamilySearch, it is the best for finding Spanish cousins.
Chat supports automatic translation between English and Spanish.
Will retain many benefits even after a paid subscription period ends.
Will match your tree with trees maintained by living cousins in Spain, greater Europe, Latin America, and the USA.
Offers best-in-class DNA tools If you add your DNA to these databases, the results will be multiplied many times
Find prices of various paid MyHeritage subscriptions at myheritage.com

Ancestry.com

Is very easy to use and provides perhaps the most DNA connections to cousins and to documents within the vast USA databases.
If you are focused on expanding your tree and improving the facts on your family within the USA as opposed to finding out about cousins in Spain, Europe and Latin America, this might be your best option
There are two different search tools within a family tree in Ancestry.com:
- Search: This appears as a menu item in Tree view, and as a magnifying glass with the word Search in a person Profile view. Search is a research tool which finds documents, records and other family trees that can help you complete and correct information on a specific person. Search for people by name, nickname, location, birth date, death date, and other criteria whether or not they are related to you or in your tree.
- Find in Tree: This tool (identified by the person/magnifying glass icon) allows you to search for Person Profiles and find them quickly in your tree. The Find in Tree tool will only return results for people who are in your tree.
Click here ancestry.com to see specific tips or to find information on various paid plans

Family Tree Maker

Many people prefer to build their family trees on their own computer to keep the information private and completely under their control. Family Tree Maker is perhaps the most popular of this type of software.
Family Tree Maker is known for its rich media/photo organization and polished user interface
As mentioned above, by itself it will not help you connect with cousins you never met, but direct two-way syncing with Ancestry is a built-in feature that can help.
You can also download your family tree from Family Tree Maker to a GEDCOM file and upload that file to other sites such as My Heritage.
Built in to the software is a search feature for both Ancestry.com and Family Search.
Once the tree is uploaded to Ancestry use the direct two-way syncing to keep the online tree in synchronization with the one stored on the PC.

Minimizing the expense of building a family tree on Family Search, MyHeritage and/or Ancestry.com:

Start with a free account.
- FamilySearch is completely free. FamilySearch Family Tree is a free, collaborative platform that allows users to work together on a shared family tree, making it easier to connect with both living and deceased relatives. They offer hundreds of educational videos and user help features.
Both MyHeritage and Ancestry.com offer free or guest accounts that give you access to some very basic features. This can be a good way to get started and see if these sites are right for you before you commit to a paid subscription.
Take advantage of what is available for free. Both MyHeritage and Ancestry.com offer free trials of their paid subscriptions. This is a great way to try out the features and see if they are worth the cost.
Back up each person in your tree with multiple source documents/records. Don't rely on just one source record or for your research. Use a variety of sources, such as census records, birth certificates, death records, draft records, ship manifests and obituaries, to verify the information in your family tree.
Be patient. Building a verified family tree takes time and effort. Don't expect to find everything overnight. Be patient and persistent, and you will eventually find the information you need.
By following these tips, you can minimize the expense of building a verified family tree on MyHeritage and Ancestry.com. However, it is important to remember that there is no free lunch. Building a verified family tree takes time, effort, and sometimes, a bit of money. But the rewards can be great. By learning about your ancestors, you can gain a deeper understanding of your own history and heritage while creating a legacy for your children.