Chrome extension

The capture front door

Bring the evidence in before you tell the story.

Capture FamilySearch sources and memories into a portable package, then review the import before it becomes part of your private research vault.

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Current manual release · Chrome, Edge, and Brave · Review our Privacy Policy

One research journey

Capture is the beginning, not the finished story.

Assist With Family History preserves the path from source material to reviewed writing. Each stage keeps the evidence and its uncertainty visible.

  1. 01

    Capture

    Bring source material in deliberately, with its origin intact.

    You are here

  2. 02

    Vault

    Preserve originals, import history, and evidence connections.

  3. 03

    Research

    Review claims, conflicts, gaps, and historical context.

  4. 04

    Story

    Write from reviewed evidence and publish intentionally.

What the extension does

A deliberate handoff from browser to vault.

User-initiated capture
Open one person’s sources or memories page, confirm consent, and start the capture yourself.
Visible source detail
The extension expands indexed information so the capture package can preserve useful fields and source context.
Portable capture package
Download structured JSON with source text, memories, indexed facts, related people, places, and diagnostics.
Respectful pacing
Built-in delays keep capture deliberate and user-mediated. It is not an unattended crawler or bulk scraper.

Capture workflow

Four visible, reviewable steps.

  1. 1

    Open one person page

    Go to a FamilySearch person’s sources or memories page while signed in through your own browser session.

  2. 2

    Confirm and capture

    Open the extension, acknowledge the consent prompt, and start the capture while the page remains visible.

  3. 3

    Keep the package

    Download the JSON file or copy it to your clipboard. You decide whether and when it leaves your device.

  4. 4

    Review the import

    Open Imports, preview the package, inspect identity matches and warnings, and only then merge accepted material into your vault.

Installation

Install the unpacked extension.

The current release is installed manually in Chrome, Edge, or Brave. Keep the extracted folder after installation.

  1. 1

    Download and extract

    Download the ZIP file and extract it to a folder you will keep, such as your Documents folder.

    Download ZIP
  2. 2

    Open browser extensions

    Open the extensions management page in your browser.

    chrome://extensions/
  3. 3

    Enable Developer mode

    Turn on Developer mode in the extensions page. This reveals the control for loading an unpacked extension.

  4. 4

    Load the extracted folder

    Choose Load unpacked and select the folder you extracted. The current extension appears as Discover Their Stories – FamilySearch Capture with an orange “T” toolbar icon.

How capture stays deliberate

Measured pacing
  • Delays between visible capture actions
  • A hard cap on source expansions
  • One person page per standard capture
Evidence preserved
  • Source titles, citation text, and record links
  • Indexed fields, related people, and places
  • Memories, capture metadata, and diagnostics
Private by default
  • Capture starts only after your visible consent
  • You control the exported package
  • Import review does not publish a family story

Ready when you are

Capture one person. Review one package.

Keep the first step small and inspectable. Nothing is merged into the vault until you open the import review and confirm it.

Download extensionOpen Imports workspace