Family records allow you to create, manage, and search information about family units in your church. Adding people records to families:

• ensures you understand the connections between your church members
• aids in communication with parents of minors
• helps minimize data entry for shared family information (e.g., mailing address)
• and much more

These records are designed to be flexible and adaptive to a variety of family configurations.

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Create a Family Record

Manage Family Records

Search Family Records

Create a Family Record

1. Navigate to your church group on Faithlife.com
2. Click People in your group’s Admin panel.
3. Click Families.
4. Existing family records will appear in the main panel of the page. You can search and filter these records. To create a new family record, click Add family.

5. If desired, add a photo representing the family unit. This photo will appear in the Directory and will be visible to all members of your church group.
6. Add people to the family record by clicking + Add Family Members.
7. Begin by typing a person’s name. You can select existing people records to add to the family record or create new records by typing the person’s name, then selecting Create new record.

Note: New person records created this way are empty. You can modify them by clicking on the person’s name, or from the People page. Learn more.

8. By default, the first person you add to a group is treated as the primary contact for the family and defaults as the family name. You can change or designate additional family member(s) as the primary contact, and their name(s) will appear in the Family Name field. (Faithlife uses the primary contact to infer the family name and address.) The primary contacts of a family has access to the family's giving statements. 

9. The Address as field determines how certain communication is addressed to the family unit. It is automatically populated based on the family name. You can modify it by clicking in Address as text box and entering different text.
10. Provide addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for the family. You can select which information to include in your group’s directory by clicking the directory  icon next to each field. A blue checked icon indicates that the information will be included in the directory.
11. Assign an envelope number to the family record, if applicable. 
12. Add any additional photos you’d like to be associated with that family record. These photos will be visible to any member of your church group.
13. Click Done to save your family record.

Manage Family Records

You can access, edit, and remove family records from the Families page.

Find the family record you want to modify by searching for it using the Find box.

• To view or edit a family record, select the family’s name.
• To remove a family record, check the box beside the family record, then click Actions > Delete Record. This removes the family record but does not remove the individual person records associated with that family.

• You can change what fields are displayed on the Families page by clicking the Columns  icon and checking the boxes beside the fields you want to see.

Remove Family Member

If you need to remove a family member:

1. Open the family record in question.
2. Click either the husband or wife’s name then click the relationship displayed beneath their ex-spouse’s name.

3. Clear the existing relationship.
4. Click either the husband or wife’s name then click Add below the other’s name.
5. Click Other and select the new relationship.

6. Click the panel menu icon next to the person you want to remove from the family, and then click Remove.

Note: The person you removed from the family will still display on the family page since you changed the relationship to ex-spouse.

7. Click the removed person’s name followed by Edit and Edit person to leave the family page and edit their person record. From here, you can add them to a new family and create new relationships, if applicable.

Merge Family Records

If you discover that you have duplicate family records, you can merge them in a few simple steps:

1. Select the families you want to merge.
2. Click Actions.
3. Click Merge two records.
4. Select the information you want to keep, add relevant relationships, and make other necessary changes.

Search Family Records

You can filter your family records by a range of criteria. To do so, click the filters  icon and check the boxes beside the filters you’d like to apply. Every family record that matches the filters you’ve selected will be displayed.