It’s been a few short years since LDS members were given free access to Ancestry.com, FindMyPast.com, MyHeritage.com, and AmercianAncestors.com. But were you also aware that you can have free access to Geneanet.com? Access for church members was announced 12 September 2016. But you may have missed this. To get your free access to Geneanet.com, go to the Geneanet page on FamilySearch and sign up for your free membership.
What are the benefits of using Geneanet? Based in France, Geneanet has an extensive collection of French genealogical records. But don’t think that is all you can find there. Records on the site also extend throughout Europe and beyond. They are also available in nine languages.
Geneanet’s digitized records, more than 700,000 of them, span the globe. Many of these are unique to Geneanet, not duplicated on other genealogy sites. Since the site supports nine languages, searching the index can be a bit a challenging since entry names may not be translated and may not include a description. This is where knowing someone who might be able to translate for you would be beneficial.
Geneanet has a significant amount of information contributed by individuals and genealogical societies. You can search the genealogical society indexes as a collection or select a society from the list and focus your search there.
As with other FamilySearch partners, keep in mind that free membership gives you access to the great majority of resources available on Geneanet but that you may still have to pay for excluded records. This is because the library or archive which houses that record requires payment for use of their records.
Just like other genealogy sites, you can upload your family tree to Geneanet. Once uploaded, you can select your privacy settings and choose a theme color for your tree. Under the Community tab you can select Forums or Collaborative Assistance. You can ask or answer questions in Forum. In Collaborative Assistance, you can ask other members to look for a record in an archive or take a photo in a particular cemetery.
Under the More tab, you can access the Geneanet blog which features articles highlighting news and tips specific to Geneanet, as well as general genealogy news. Another feature that might be helpful is Email Alerts by Last Name, which sends weekly notices of new information added to the Geneanet database about a last name of interest to you.
[FamilySearch Blog, 19 July 2017]