Ancestral Quest-FamilySearch Update for April 23, 2021

For those of you that use Ancestral Quest's direct connection to FamilySearch Family Tree, here is an update on an important issue.

FamilySearch made a change early on April 16, 2021 that affected a key function in the connection between AQ and FamilySearch. We became aware of the issue just after 11:00am MDT. We reached out to them to see whether they could correct this on their side, or whether we would need to make a change to Ancestral Quest.

At around 4:00pm MDT, FamilySearch informed us that they had reversed the change on their side. However, they also said that the change would be reinstated on Friday, April 23rd. So, we updated Ancestral Quest to accommodate that change in their system.

A new update to Ancestral Quest 16, build 9, was released on April 19 (and subsequently, build 10 has also been released). All users who utilize the FamilySearch tools within AQ should update their copy of Ancestral Quest to the latest build. The program should prompt you to install the update when you launch AQ.

If you have used AQ on or after Friday April 23 to review FamilySearch data within the program, and you had not yet applied the update, and you have experienced error messages, this means that the links between some individuals in your file and the corresponding individuals in FamilySearch have been broken.

After you update your Ancestral Quest to the latest build, you can fix the errors in one of two ways:

1. If you had made a backup of your database prior to experiencing the issue, simply restore from that backup to restore these links.
2. Otherwise, you will now want to run the Database Check/Repair function to reset these links, so that you will be ready to re-link these records to FamilySearch. To do this:
   1. Go up to the menu bar in Ancestral Quest and select Tools, then at the bottom, select Database Check/Repair.
   2. On the left side of this window, click the option to Check and Repair, then on the right side, click the Check button.
   3. In the small window that appears, click the Backup button to make a backup of your database (always do this before running Check/Repair.)
   4. Once the backup is complete, you will return to the small window. This time, click on the CheckRepair button.
   5. Within the Save As window that appears, erase the Checkfix text, and in its place, type in today's date (in the format 04-16-21), followed by the word Repair, then click the Save button.
   6. A Repair Report should appear on your screen. It is likely that this report will list those individuals whose FamilySearch PIDs were reset, so you'll know which records you can link back up with FamilySearch.

Once you are back into your database, you should be able to continue to work with FamilySearch within AQ. You will just need to re-link your records that had become disconnected to the corresponding records on FamilySearch Family Tree.