Puzzilla step by step tutorial

Today I was asked for more step by step instructions for teaching the Puzzilla program to find your family history.  I have been having some great success with my family names and haven't sat down to do family history on Puzzilla without feeling great success. I think it is a huge way to access your family that has been untapped.

To start with you need to watch this amazing 4 minute video with Elder Anderson and his grandson telling about finding your cousins

Then I think it would be helpful to give you a step by step instructions so you can refer to them again and again.

1. Login with your LDS.org or Family Search User name and Password
(This connects you to the work that is already done.)

2. Puzzilla it will automatically create a fan chart with you at the bottom of the fan and your ancestors fanning out from the middle

It looks like this:

3. Choose one of the ancestors at the the top of the fan.

4. click on the Descendants button

Puzzilla will generate a descendant chart for the family member you chose.

It looks like this:

5. Look for ancestors that have no descendants.

• A Yellow box next to a red or blue box means that ancestor died before the age of 16

•  Any ancestor that has a Grey box means they are less then 110 years old and might still be alive. 

Avoid either of these. But anyone else needs to be researched to find if they have descendants that are not on family search yet. Click on the red or blue box and it will show you their information. 

6. Choose View in Family tree button

Puzzilla will take you to their Family tree person page

7. On the Right hand side of the page you will look for the button that says Search Records

Family search will take you to the indexing records,  Census or birth or death records with this persons name or similar names.

8. This is where the fun begins because if you can find this ancestor in a census or on a birth certificate as a parent you have found children for this person that were not there before. This is how to start finding your family to do their work for them.  SO FUN!!

This video talks about what you can find when you search the records and what to do to refine your search to find what you are looking for.

More fun and challenges for 40 days:
 http://www.brightlystreet.com/40-day-temple-challenge/