FamilySearch Get Involved
reviews and complaints

So glad this exists! Can't give feedback via the app because it keeps telling me to set up an email. Except I'm connected via my LDS account, so I'm confused.

I wish that I could start typing, then pause to scroll around the record, then go back to typing. It erases what I'm working on each time which is annoying.

Simple. Wonderful. Brief. What a great way to get involved with genealogy! You contribute to others while also being engaged in the process! Family Search should have more apps like this one, where ONE function is the focus, and it's simple and not too time consuming. My teens both saw me do it and said, “wow, let me download it too Dad!" That doesn't happen very often. Keep it up!

Reviewing the 1950 Census is fun and rewarding. By reviewing and correcting the computer-transcribed names allows others to find their family, friends, and loved ones.

I go to my computer and Review Families which is the next step in the process.

NOTE: If the Census line is marked, “Not Home" or “vacant", press the flag icon (lower right) and select “Not a Person." You often have to do this twice as it tries to pick up a first and last name.
Dan

I was skeptical that technology could actually read 19th-century cursive, but was pleasantly surprised. I've run through at least 100 names so far just to get an idea of how well it worked, and so far so good. Two issues to raise, though: 1. When I edit a name, there's no way to ensure that my edits are saved. No button, no “save" indicator of any kind. I made some significant edits, but did they take? Let your users know what's going on, please. 2. I wish there were a way I could flag the name of the parish priest; his name shows up on every page and doesn't need to, and that's a lot of extra temple work. I'll keep using this and adjust my rating accordingly.

This app is such a simple easy way to get involved in the family history and it does not take a ton of time. I spent probably 15 to 20 minutes today helping review names in Spanish and I was able to help review over 50 names. This is such a simple way to participate even for busy parents like me who hardly have time to participate. I hope the efforts we put into it are as helpful as they are easy to do.

This app allows you to get involved with the effort to index records conveniently on your phone.

I like to index on my computer, and have tried doing it on my phone using the family search website and it's just not very feasible. But this app simplifies the process and makes it easy to do from your phone!

I love the initiative and like the opportunity to pay it forward by being part of the movement to index all documents and pave the path for other the same way that others did before me.

The app it's user friendly. You won't have any trouble using it. I suggest you do.

I don't understand why you can only review names on the app, and only able to index on the webpage. It would be convenient to also have the opportunity to index on the road.

I've been reviewing names for some time and am able to see the stats on the webpage, but won't sync on the app. It always shows empty, on cero (0).

Also, when reviewing names, it often asks me to review the same name several times as if it were a different section or the next name on the list although is the same one on the page.

Please fix!

Pros: This is a great, easy to use app! It helps me stay off YouTube/TikTok/news sites and encourages me to do something valuable in a short amount of time. I probably log about 100 names on average throughout each day, often in small small amounts.

Con: The app isn't as reliable as I'd like it to be. When I open it up and tap “Review Names", about 2/5 times I'll get a message saying “An error occurred. Please try again later." I leave the filters as broad as possible to see if that helps, but it usually doesn't. (This is for the regular search button and the 1950 census button). For a person like me that has a passion for indexing and family history, it isn't too much of a bother, but I imagine it could turn off a lot of users if they encounter this as frequently as I do.

I have been able to review names and index on the website, but from the app I keep receiving a message that documents are not available from my country. I would like to do more from the app, but until I can get past this issue, I'll have to stick to the website

I like this new app for doing indexing of old records. It is amazing how good the computer is at reading this old handwriting, but it is not perfect, so they still need humans to check it. This app makes it quick and keeps it simple. I really got addicted fast and couldn't stop. It felt like I was doing something useful in just one or two minutes.

I help a little with family history with this app. I spend a few minutes every day reviewing names, maybe waiting in the car, or resting for a few minutes. I review 30 names a day, more on days that I can. The app keeps a total of each months names reviewed. It's rewarding in a spiritual way, I feel blessings from it.

I know I am supposed to do Family History and I know that when I do I feel blessed but it's still hard to do and take time for! This app is fantastic and now I want to take time to do it every day because it makes it - simple process!

One thing that I think would be super helpful is to see how helpful this actually is to do! I want to see intro videos of how me doing this little thing every day helps in the whole process of things. how does me doing this make a difference in the big picture?

I love the opportunity to help review names, and the convenience of being able to use my iPhone to help family history progress! I can review names when waiting in line at the store or when I have a few minutes to spare. Easy. There are several bugs in this app; but perhaps the worst is a newer bug that name swaps. When you click, “Incorrect Highlight" or hit the “Back" button, the contents of the text box gets stuck on the last name you reported as “Incorrect Highlight", or approved as a “Match". This can be corrected by clicking “Unsure", but it took some experimenting to figure out.

A glitch that has been a problem for awhile is the thermometer/counter, which doesn't work regularly once you get past about 300k names. I have been stuck at under 400K for several months, and easily done 2 million or more names.
Please provide an update to this app. You've started such a wonderful thing. Thank you!

In the first five minutes after downloading the app, I was able to match 30 names. The app is very well designed. I believe just about anyone of any age can regularly use this app to provide a great service in digitizing the names of our ancestors.

The technology's (likely AI models) ability to identify and suggest the names that match the written names is simply impressive.

I'll be using this app to do Family History work, knowing it is helping generations, past, present and future.

I think this is a great project, and I'm excited to help. I like the app because I can do a few names any time I have a few minutes waiting somewhere. I also like that I can zoom the image in very close to make out tricky names, better than on the web site.

My main complaint is that the app has not yet fixed the issue of filtering by state. This was fixed on the website to pull up documents from the state in question, while the app still pulls documents from any random state as long a one person came from the filtered state. One star loss for that.
Secondarily, a minor issue is that marking an entry Not a Person requires two separate tap actions, while it is a single click on the web site.

This opens up simple ways for youth to draw on the promises of family history without having to “figure out" formats for each indexing project! I hope this translates I to various languages and record types, because it's beautifully simple!

It's incredible easier than indexing ever has been, truly.

Should I do this regardless? Yes. But the gamification of counting how many names I had done helped, and it seems to never work anymore, my June never changed after hundreds of names. It used to work, but seems to be broken.

Wish they had a little more rather than “unsure" but it's overall simple enough. (Ability to add or subtract from what is highlighted would be nice)

The church apps all having light blue icons isn't helping the fact that this app has the same color as most the apps, and same symbol as the other family search one, isn't helping. The fact that “living" is a branch, but not part of family search adds to the confusion.

I wanted to love this as I have been waiting for an app like this for a long time. However your development team needs to fix the language issues! The fact that I can't change the language at all is just not ok. It is stuck on Spanish! It's been stuck on Spanish for a month now. Fix your issues.

Logged in and thought I had done something wrong but looks like many people are having the same problem—only Spanish-language countries are available, and support has not let out one peep on whether they know or are trying to fix it. Bye bye bye!

My default language is English. All of my apps recognize this except FamilySearch's Get Involved app. There is no way to set a language in the app. Searching the developer's site for support is worthless as it defaults to general support. There does not appear to be a place to provide meaningful feedback to the developer Searches for language settings on their “support" site only give instructions for changing it to something other than English. The result is that no matter what I do, the app presents me with Spanish names. Really disappointed.

EDIT 11 July 2023: The "My Contributions" section is still completely broken in many ways. Doesn't even count your contributions. My number of contributions for multiple months is shown as ZERO. Very upsetting. Please try to fix this. ---------- Such a great way to volunteer my time! App is designed well. ---------- EDIT 9 March 2023: App suddenly stopped counting contributions towards the bar chart and the total number of names corrected. FamilySearch.org/GetInvolved on a computer still correctly adds to the "Names Corrected" counter inside the "Name Review" square. The app no longer adds to the counter! ---------- Also, please start counting Place-Name Correction/Verification, Indexing, etc into the counter/bar charts so that volunteers can see the number of things they have helped to correct (or verify) for all volunteering opportunities, as opposed to only seeing the number of corrections made for the Name Review volunteering opportunity. ---------- Review will change back to 5 stars after the major bug is fixed! ---------- EDIT 13 March 2023: I logged out, deleted the app, redownloaded the app, logged in, and reviewed more names. The bug is not fixed; My changes are not being counted towards the monthly or total "All Names Reviewed" under the "My Contributions" tab. Names I review on the app do not update the My Contributions numbers on the app or the website, whereas names I review on the website still correctly update the My Contributions numbers on both the website and the app. I believe this problem started with the newest software update (Version 1.4.0). ---------- EDIT 28 March 2023: the edit counters in the "My Contributions" tab seem to be fixed now! (app Version 1.4.1) ---------- EDIT 2 April 2023: the "My Contributions" counter is broken again... my contributions are not being counted, so my total number is starting the same and my April edits counter is staying at zero...