We live in a golden age for genealogy with so much information at our finger tips, the science of DNA testing, and the power of real-time communication globally.

And yet so often, a crucial clue for building family trees is overlooked: Godparents.

They’re often treated as second-class pieces of evidence, when in fact they can be substantial, even key signals as to the social circles of our ancestors. They can reveal information about who they valued, who they were close to, what social class they were part of, and so on. I’ve written about how godparents can also break through brick walls.

For Oberpfalz, Bavaria, and some other parts of Europe, a child was typically named after the godparent. I like building “godparent trees” for unusual names – like Jost. Jost was named for one Jost, who was named for another before him, another before him, etc.

Identifying godparents on FamilySearch.org is very easy. You’ll find them under “Other Relationships” at the bottom of any person’s profile page (on the site or in the app).

For example, for my ancestor Tobias HILBURGER, his godfather was Tobias TROPPMANN, while he served as the godfather of a Matthias HARRER after immigrating to Buffalo, New York:

His great-grandfather Veit HILBURGER was the godfather for 4 children, and his godfather was Veit KOLLER:

These interlinked relationships make it easy to get from one profile to the next, even if the families aren’t related by blood, perhaps only socially.

It’s so easy to create a new godparent/godchild relationship, even if one of the individuals isn’t in the big Family Tree already. You hit the + first, and you’ll see a screen like this.

Either add a person or start by signifying their relatinship with the dropdown. These are your choices there, so it goes beyond godparent relationships:

Notice you can select neighbor, employment, apprenticeship, etc. Lots of options that can help identify the social circle of your ancestor and link them to more people in the larger Family Tree.

When you’re done, it looks something like this:

Have fun!