Genealogy from the perspective of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon, LDS)

Thursday, March 1, 2018

What is the FamilySearch Family Tree User ID?

Eveyone who registers for the FamilySearch.org website receives a unique ID number. This is different than and should not be confused with the ID number assigned to the people who are entered into the Family Tree (i.e. your deceased ancestors). The Helper Number is also automatically assigned by the program. Here is the explanation of the Helper Number from FamilySearch.
A helper number is an identification number that allows someone to use FamilySearch.org on behalf of someone else. 
People who already have an account on FamilySearch.org can see or edit their helper number in settings. 
Note: Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a default helper access number, which is the last 5 characters of their membership record number. You can use this default number to help Church members who do not have LDS Accounts.
This is an example of how I keep learning about the program. The question arose as to what happens when you want to stop someone from helping you. This has to do with your "Helper Number" and not your User Number. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the user number is your Membership Record Number and your Helper Number is the last five digits of your Membership Record Number. You cannot change your Membership Record Number.

If you wish to terminate a helping session, you can change your Helper Number. This will terminate the session. However, you cannot change your User Number, i.e. Membership Record Number. In some rare cases, members of the Church may end up with more than oen Membership Record Number. This can cause problems with the Family Tree program and should be resolved with help from your Ward Clerk.

If you are a member of the Church and sign in without using a Membership Record Number, you will not be able to see anything associated with the ordinances or temples. You can rectify this by entering your Membership Record Number in Settings under your name when you sign in.

We often use a members Membership Record Number to help to restore their user name and password.

2 comments:

  1. I’m sure you know this James but your readers may not. In the FS user settings under Connected accounts there is a list of who has access to “help” or access your tree. You may terminate access as desired. Of course if the person helping you has your username and helper # they could regain access.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the reminder. I will take this up again because I have about forty programs that have access to my part of the Family Tree also.

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