I'm not sure if this is the officially correct terminology, but FamilySearch has a community tree that all users contribute to. It's sort of a Wiki kind of thing, if you are familiar with how that works. It's like all of us RM users loaded all our data up to one big database in the sky and combined it together (plus lots of other people who are not using RM). If I see a correction to some data that's already out there, I can simply make the correction and vice versa for somebody else looking at data that I have put out there. There are procedures in place to document what changes were made, who made them, when they were made, and why. For the most part, this has all been taking place by users logging into the FamilySearch site and doing their work from there. FamilySearch has recently added a way that such updates can be made from programs such as RM without users having to logon directly to FamilySearch. Ok, so you have the community tree out there, the results of the collective research of all the FamilySearch users. Also, FamilySearch has bunches of databases out there - censuses, birth records, death records, and lots more. These databases are not part of the community tree. They are just raw data. These databases can serve as sources for users who are putting data into the community tree. The next step in the hints process is that FamilySearch runs some automated processes behind the scenes to try to find connections between their databases and the community tree that has been built by their users. You can logon to FamilySearch and see these hints as Record Hints. FamilySearch only finds the hints and makes them available. It doesn't confirm or deny whether they were correct - for example, whether John Doe age 5 in the 1850 census was the same person as a John Doe in the community tree who was born in 1845. FamilySearch users themselves confirm or reject the hints. What's happening with RM is that data in your database is being matched against the community tree. The matches may or may not be correct. That's for your to decide. But if the matches between your database and the community tree are correct, and if the Record Hints between the community tree and the FamilySearch databases are correct, then you will have found matches between your database and the FamilySearch databases. There is nothing in the process that will bring sourcing information from the FamilySearch databases back into your database. You will have to do that manually. Nevertheless, the hints can be quite useful. Also, you can use RM to confirm the hints, except that the process is not really confirming the hints between your database and the community tree nor between your database and the FamilySearch databases. Rather, the process is confirming the hints between the community tree and the FamilySearch databases, the same thing you can do by logging on directly to FamilySearch without using RM at all. Jerry -----Original Message----- From: Pat McGrath via Sent: Thu, February 05, 2015 3:40 PM To: 'RootsMagic Users List ' Subject: [RMagic] Web hint question Hi: When using Web hints in FamilySearch, I see a document with info on the left side of the screen and on the right it says Family Tree .. If not yours, find tree. What is really being shown on the right side of the page? I do NOT have a 'tree' in FamilySearch, nor do I want to put one there at this time. I seem to have to leave that screen, go to my RM person screen to see if I have that info, right info, wrong info, etc. .. Then what? Manually enter info into RM if it is my person? Sorry, but I'm finding using this very confusing . must be a senior moment thing???? But help appreciated! Pat =================================== RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message