Start here › Lesson 3

Your list of trees

Find, search, pin and create trees, and understand every symbol on a tree card.

The three tabs

Under the top bar you see three tabs. The number beside each tab is how many trees it holds.

Reading a tree card

Each tree is a coloured card. From top to bottom:

• The tree name in yellow, and a yellow star if it is pinned.
• Your role (Owner, Manager or View only) and when the tree last changed, such as "2h ago".
• The description in a line or two.
• Total members: how many people are in the tree.
• Round buttons along the bottom (see below).

Round buttons on a card

The small symbols

Small yellow tags sit on the edges of a card: on the left for the tree itself (part of a forest), on the right for sharing and for the two settings for connected families, and at the top for news. If you forget what one means, tap Symbols under the tabs and Asal Ku explains every symbol and button currently on your cards.

The yellow number on the Tree button at the bottom counts new or updated trees. It goes down by one each time you open such a tree.

Sorting

Under the tabs, the middle button changes the order. Recent puts the tree you opened last first. A–Z sorts by name. Pinned trees always stay at the top.

Searching

Type in the search box at the top. Asal Ku looks at tree names, descriptions and every person in every tree you can open.

• It forgives spelling. Typing aysha finds Aisha. Names that sound alike are found too, and the card says "(sounds like)" next to them.
• It looks at everything you may see about a person, not only the name: nicknames, years, and the details written about them (contact, residence, hobbies, education, sports and their Notes) and the captions of their pictures. Typing penang or a phone number finds the person, and the card says "(found in details)".
• Notes are searched whole, however long they are. A word spelled a little differently, or that sounds the same, still finds the person: jelutung finds a note that says Jelutong. Where a family has very long notes, Asal Ku keeps them on your device (or asks the server) instead of in memory, and you do not have to do anything. The notes kept on a device are removed when you sign out.
• The same forgiving search is used when you connect people (lesson 10) and when you look for another family's tree: a different spelling or a name that sounds alike still finds them. Other families' people are found by name only, because that is all they share.
• Tap a card while a search is on and the search goes with you. The tree (or the whole forest, from the Forests page) opens with the best match in the middle of the screen and selected, its information card open with the found words marked in its notes and details, and the same words already typed in the tree's own search box. Tap that box to see everybody who matched in this tree. Clear the box to go back to the plain tree.
• When several people match, they are all shown on the tree. In a tree or a forest with a search on, everybody found gets a yellow ring and the letters that matched are yellow in their name beside them; everybody else fades. A bar right under the search box says how many were found (4 found for "rahman") with ‹ and › to step through them: each one is brought to the middle with their information card open, the found words marked in it (name, years, details and notes). ✕ clears the search and the fading. On a computer, Enter or the right arrow goes to the next match, Shift+Enter or the left arrow to the previous one, and Escape clears the search (a second Escape leaves the tree). With more than 50 matches only the bar is shown, since ringing everybody would say nothing.
• Cards that do not match disappear. The numbers on the tabs show how many matches each tab has.
• Under a matching card you see which people matched, so you know why it was shown. The found letters or words are marked in yellow: the part of the name that matched, and for a person found by a note or a detail, a short piece of the text around the found word (…grew up in Jelutong, near the harbour…). The same marks show in the search box inside a tree, when you connect people and when you tag people in a photo.
• Prefer to speak? Tap the orange microphone and say what to look for; the small box beside it chooses the language you speak. Every search box has them: the trees page, a tree, the Forests page, connecting a person, tagging people in a photo, and this guide's own search.

Pinned trees

1. Tap the star on a tree card. It turns yellow.

2. The tree now stays at the top of its list, and also appears on the Pinned tab.

3. Tap the star again to unpin.

Creating a tree

1. Tap the round orange + button at the bottom right of the list.

2. The Add New Tree form opens. It has the same sections as the form for editing a person: Tree, First Member, and Contact, Residence, Hobbies, Education and Sports for extra details. Under Tree, fill in the tree name (for example "Our Family") and, if you like, a short description.

3. Open First Member and type the name of the first person. This is usually you, or the oldest ancestor you know.

4. Choose the gender and, if you know them, the birth date and death date. Dates can be a year (1965), a year and month (1965-10) or a full date (1965-10-05).

5. Under Avatar, tap Take a photo or Choose a photo, or pick a picture avatar. You can change it later.

6. Everything under Contact, Residence, Hobbies, Education and Sports is optional. Fill in what you know about the first person, or leave it for later.

7. Tap Submit. Your new tree appears at the top of the Mine list. Tap it to open it.

Changing a tree's name, deleting it, or removing it

Opening a shared tree you were sent

When a relative gives you a link or shows you a QR code, you can tap Scan QR on the list to open the camera and scan it, or simply open the link in your browser. Lesson 9 covers sharing in full.