FamilySearch & Ancestry

Commercial and church-index sites are where many people already have trees and hints. Atto opens filtered search URLs from your Inbox note — you sign in with your own account, read the record, and decide what belongs in your vault. Atto does not scrape FamilySearch or Ancestry, does not sync trees automatically, and does not bypass paywalls.

What Atto does and does not do

Does: build deep links with surname, given name, place, and year when your note includes them.
Does: let you import an existing .ged export on Home — one-time, file you chose.
Does not: log into FamilySearch, Ancestry, or MyHeritage on your behalf.
Does not: copy hints, thumbnails, or citations in the background.
Does not: write anything to your tree without your explicit Approve action.

That boundary keeps Atto out of terms-of-service trouble and keeps surprises out of your tree.

Opening a link from the find plan

Build or refresh the find plan on Research in the desktop kit on your computer.
Click a FamilySearch (or other) row under Open:.
Your browser opens the search results page. Log in with your free or paid account if prompted.
Open the indexed record image. Read the original — indexes mistranscribe Italian names constantly.

Ancestry links work the same way when they appear in your plan. Atto cannot see your subscription status; some images require Ancestry DNA or World membership on your account.

Capture to Inbox

When you find something useful, bring it back to Atto deliberately:

Paste a short citation note — source title, film number, page, URL — into Inbox.
Save a screenshot or downloaded image into your project folder if you already organize files there; reference the filename in the note.
Do not paste full SSNs, living people’s details, or entire certificate PDFs into chat or Discord.

Inbox notes stay on your machine under ~/AttoVault/. They are not uploaded to Atto’s servers.

Approve is the human gate

Hints on Ancestry and suggested records on FamilySearch are not facts until you verify them. When Atto proposes a structured find (from practice runs or assisted extraction), it lands in the Approve queue — never straight into the tree.

You compare the proposal to the image you saw, then Add to tree or Reject. Rejecting is free and common. Only a human can approve; not an AI helper, not a background job.

Already have a tree?

If you exported a .ged file from Ancestry or FamilySearch, import it on Home instead of retyping everyone. Treat imported facts as starting points — still verify Italian lines against Antenati or comune copies before you order filing-grade documents.

Video walkthrough

Video walkthrough coming soon.