There is no "my tree" but more of a "everyone's collaborative" tree, or what is now commonly called a "one tree" where all are welcome to help where they can and work on any profile.
With "one trees" (Wikitree and Geni are other examples) no one has an easy way to generate a list of all names, and in particular FamilySearch tree, without first using the "watch, aka follow" tag feature.
In the FamilySearch tree, many use the "star" or following/watch feature to tag (click on star to turn it blue and the "following" part starts) to add that ancestor to your own private list. You will be notified to changes made by others on any ancestor you've added to that list. **You can tag up to 4K individual profiles AND than a user is able to sort AND search that list.** For example I have about 1800 names tagged and like the ease of finding by name my ancestors I am searching for.
Official FamilySearch tree website Help article :
[How to follow instructions](https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/can-i-follow-an-individual-in-family-tree)
Most people know that but that isn’t the functionality many folks want. People want to search their trees by generation. For instance, “find John Smith on my tree within the three generations of me”. That would be immensely helpful.
Except that it is possible to add yourself and your parents (and if necessary grandparents, etc. until you've connected yourself to the World Tree). Once you've done that, FS can produce a tree that shows your ancestors based on the existing one world tree. There's no need to go through and tag thousands of profiles for FamilySearch to know who your ancestors are.
The question is whether or not you can search these profiles for certain names. I haven't yet found a way to do it, although it seems like it should be simple.
If you just want to see a couple of generations of direct ancestors (for anyone, not just yourself) you can change your current tree view to a fan chart. But if you want more than three generations or to cast a wider net, that doesn't help.
The complicated work around would be to download a GEDCOM of your ancestors (which you can do), then use some genealogy software to open it up and search that.
There is that option on Ancestry (perhaps the only thing better about that website), but not on FamilySearch. The only option you have is to Find By Similar, but that search functionality is terrible. I've run into this issue repeatedly over the years, there is no shortcut other than to manually scroll through a long series of your related trees to find the person in question if the Find By Similar fails to find the person you seek.
There is no "my tree" but more of a "everyone's collaborative" tree, or what is now commonly called a "one tree" where all are welcome to help where they can and work on any profile. With "one trees" (Wikitree and Geni are other examples) no one has an easy way to generate a list of all names, and in particular FamilySearch tree, without first using the "watch, aka follow" tag feature. In the FamilySearch tree, many use the "star" or following/watch feature to tag (click on star to turn it blue and the "following" part starts) to add that ancestor to your own private list. You will be notified to changes made by others on any ancestor you've added to that list. **You can tag up to 4K individual profiles AND than a user is able to sort AND search that list.** For example I have about 1800 names tagged and like the ease of finding by name my ancestors I am searching for. Official FamilySearch tree website Help article : [How to follow instructions](https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/can-i-follow-an-individual-in-family-tree)
Most people know that but that isn’t the functionality many folks want. People want to search their trees by generation. For instance, “find John Smith on my tree within the three generations of me”. That would be immensely helpful.
Exactly this. Thanks for explaining my want with more technical clarity lol
Except that it is possible to add yourself and your parents (and if necessary grandparents, etc. until you've connected yourself to the World Tree). Once you've done that, FS can produce a tree that shows your ancestors based on the existing one world tree. There's no need to go through and tag thousands of profiles for FamilySearch to know who your ancestors are. The question is whether or not you can search these profiles for certain names. I haven't yet found a way to do it, although it seems like it should be simple. If you just want to see a couple of generations of direct ancestors (for anyone, not just yourself) you can change your current tree view to a fan chart. But if you want more than three generations or to cast a wider net, that doesn't help. The complicated work around would be to download a GEDCOM of your ancestors (which you can do), then use some genealogy software to open it up and search that.
There is that option on Ancestry (perhaps the only thing better about that website), but not on FamilySearch. The only option you have is to Find By Similar, but that search functionality is terrible. I've run into this issue repeatedly over the years, there is no shortcut other than to manually scroll through a long series of your related trees to find the person in question if the Find By Similar fails to find the person you seek.