Setting Up Your FHnotebook: Sharing

Your family history research has taken you hours of searching and collecting; why wouldn't you want to share it with others? With FHnotebook you can share your research with friends, family, and fellow researchers. When you share an item with others, they can see and add to what you've accomplished. You can share entire notebooks, individual documents, and tasks.

Here are a few specific scenarios where sharing could be useful for you:

1. Collecting stories, videos, and audio files: Collaborate with family and friends to gather stories and videos about your family, helping you make your family history record full and meaningful.
2. Working with a professional genealogist: Share files and information you’ve gathered with a professional genealogist in an organized way as you research specific family lines.
3. Assigning tasks: Appoint members of your family—close family members or more distant relations—specific tasks to move your family history research forward. Working together, you will be able to accomplish more and ensure that your efforts aren’t duplicated.

How do you choose who to share your research with?

If you have the Forever Free plan, you can choose one person to share your research with. This person should be someone you would want to stay in frequent contact with. This person could be a family member, a genealogist helping you research, your spouse, etc.

With the Hobbyist (5Gb of storage) and Genealogist (20Gb of storage) plans, you don’t have to choose: you can share with as many people as you'd like. If the individual you've shared with has an FHnotebook account, your shared research will appear in his or her “Shared Research” area. If not, he or she will receive an email with instructions on how to view your research—at no cost to them, of course.

How do you share research?

To share an item, open that item's details view. Click “Share this Item” in the right-hand panel of the details page.

Add the individual you'd like to share with by typing his or her email address into the field at the top of the “Share With” window and then clicking the envelope next to the field. If you've shared with someone in the past, you can add them by clicking “Add from Contacts” at the bottom of the sharing window.

Once you've added everyone you'd like to share with, click “Done” in the lower right corner of the sharing window.

Where can you find your shared research?

You can view shared tasks, files, and notebooks in the Shared Research section found on the right side of your screen. Here you will see items divided into what others have shared with you as well as those items you've shared with others.

One of the best features of sharing in FHnotebook is the ability to create and share tasks with others. You can specify start dates and due dates, allocate users responsible for the task, and add notes and comments to the task if there are specific elements you want the user to keep in mind while completing the task. You can even color code the task to help you group certain tasks together. When you assign a task to someone, they can mark the task as “ready for review,” letting you know to review what they've done. Only you as the task creator can mark the task as complete.

If you have more questions about how to share your family history research using FHnotebook, see our user guide.

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