FamilySearch

FamilySearch

Web address	FamilySearch.org
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Family history
Available language(s)	English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish
Owner	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Launched	01999-05-24May 24, 1999
Alexa rank	4,597 (June 2013)
Current status	Active

FamilySearch logo used from 2006-2013.

FamilySearch is a genealogy organization operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch maintains a collection of records, resources, and services designed to help people learn more about their family history. FamilySearch gathers, preserves, and shares genealogical records worldwide. It offers free access to its resources and service online at FamilySearch.org, one of the most heavily used genealogy sites on the Internet. In addition, FamilySearch offers personal assistance at more than 4,500 family history centers in 70 countries, including the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

FamilySearch cites as its motivation to provide genealogical information the "beliefs of the LDS Church that families are meant to be central to our lives and that family relationships are intended to continue beyond this life."

History

• 1894: Founded as the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU)
• 1938: GSU begins microfilming records of genealogical importance
• 1963: The microfilm collection is moved to the newly completed Granite Mountain Records Vault for long-term preservation.
• 1995: After a controversy, a deal is struck between the Jewish and LDS communities to "Remove from the International Genealogical Index in the future the names of all deceased Jews who are so identified if they are known to be improperly included counter to Church policy."
• 1998: FamilySearch/GSU begins digital imaging of records
• About August 1998: Decision is made by LDS Church leaders to build a genealogical website.
• May 1999: Website first opened to the public. It almost immediately went off-line, overloaded because of extreme popularity.
• October 1999: Surpassed 1.5 billion hits.
• November 1999: 240 million names added, bringing the total number of entries to 640 million.
• 2001: Work began on a replacement website, backed by a consolidated database, giving users the ability to edit data. (Later named 'New FamilySearch' and which will at some point become known as the 'Family Tree feature' on the FamilySearch.org website.)
• November 2005: New FamilySearch.org enters first Beta test. Enough bugs are found, along with extensive user feedback and suggestions, that it takes longer than expected to get to the second beta.
• February 2007: New FamilySearch.org enters Beta 2 testing.
• June 2007: New FamilySearch.org was made available for church members in some areas (by LDS temple district), increasing through the next several years
• 2008: The Vatican issued a statement calling the practice known as baptism for the dead "erroneous" and directing its dioceses to keep parish records from Mormons performing genealogical research.
• Early 2009: New FamilySearch available to church membership around the world, with the exception of Utah/Idaho and the five Asian temples.
• Mid 2009: New FamilySearch gradually being made available to church membership in Utah and Idaho.
• November 2009: New FamilySearch available to church membership worldwide, except for members in the five Asian temple districts.

Features

The FamilySearch.org website offers free access to digital images of genealogical records. These images can be searched along with a number of databases.

FamilySearch.org also contains the catalog of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The library holds genealogical records for over 110 countries, territories, and possessions, including over 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed genealogical records; 742,000 microfiche; 310,000 books, serials, and other formats; and 4,500 periodicals. The microfilm and microfiche can be ordered and viewed at over 4,000 library branches (called Family History Centers) worldwide.

FamilySearch also offers research help through the FamilySearch Wiki and Forums.

Searching Holocaust victims or celebrities results in account suspension.

Digitization and indexing projects

Main article: FamilySearch Indexing

FamilySearch is in the process of digitizing its entire microfilm collection and making those images available online. The searchable indexes are created by volunteers using FamilySearch Indexing software developed by the LDS Church. To ensure greater accuracy, each batch of records is indexed by two separate indexers and any discrepancies are sent to an expert arbitrator. Indexing volunteers need not be members of the LDS Church and FamilySearch is currently working with genealogical societies all around the world to index local projects. At the end of 2010, 548 million vital records had been transcribed and made publicly available through the FamilySearch website.

Classes and training

FamilySearch offers free lessons on FamilySearch.org to help people learn how to do find their ancestors. The topics range from basic research to training on specific record types and are designed for both beginners and experienced researchers. Most of the classes come from research consultants in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, but FamilySearch is also collaborating with partners such as the Mid-Continent Public Library in Independence, Missouri to record and post classes.

Wiki and Forums

In 2007, it was decided to start a wiki to help FamilySearch users and others researching genealogy and family history to find and share information on data sources and research tips. The first version of the Wiki was built on the Plone wiki software product, but it was soon discovered that Mediawiki software was much more a fit for the needs, so in January 2008 it was moved to the Mediawiki platform. In the intervening years it was rolled out in other languages, and at present it is available in 11 languages. The other language wikis are found via links at the bottom of the wiki homepage. The wiki in English has over 70,000 articles as of January 2013. The wiki is found under the Learn tab at the top of any FamilySearch.org page.

In 2009 a forums site was started which then grew to include a variety of subject and topic categories. Some of the extra features include social groups where people can discuss a particular surname or other topic related to genealogy. Help topics are also featured with discussions related to new FamilySearch, FamilySearch Indexing, and some other products and site features having forums on this page as well. The forums were never linked from the homepage, but were accessible at forums.familysearch.org. Effective 31 December 2012 the forums were closed, although they remain available as read-only.

New FamilySearch

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released a web application for members (and, eventually, the public) to be able to interact with very large, unified databases of connected genealogical information. When released to the public, it will be moved into the current FamilySearch.org site and will be called the Family Tree. Many of the FamilySearch databases are being combined into one database and all the records for each individual are being combined into folders. These folders are then being linked to pedigrees.

Some prominent features of the new website are:

• Support for multiple assertions on facts, allowing people to "agree to disagree."
• Source citations, including links to source images. This promised linking service may not be available in earlier versions. Documents scanned from the Church's 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed vital records, from around the world, will eventually be linked to individuals in the system. These films are currently being scanned and indexed.
• Several features specific to the membership of the LDS Church, facilitating temple ordinance work.
• A one-world pedigree of linked families that will operate wiki style, with anyone able to add comments and information.
• A mapping utility that maps locations where an individual has resided. It is a mashup of the new FamilySearch website and Google Maps showing pushpins for events in a person's life.

'New FamilySearch' is expected to be retired in early 2013 according to an emailed newsletter sent to LDS Family History Consultants on 11 September 2012. By then it will have been replaced by FamilySearch Family Tree, which is currently under development and is being beta tested.

On November 1, 2012 a more active rollout of Family Tree began with a note being placed on the New FamilySearch landing page, where the quotes from LDS leaders had been on that site, to 'Try Family Tree,' and had a button to take the user to the sign-in page. An early report sent to a mailing list within a couple hours of this change happening also indicated that some functions in new FamilySearch, particularly that which allowed users to combine matching entries of ancestors, had been turned off. This event signals a wider user base will begin using Family Tree very shortly.

On 5 March 2013, FamilySearch announced that Family Tree is now available to everyone, regardless of whether they are a member of the LDS Church or not. This was announced via a blog post on the FamilySearch website (see 'Blog' tab there) and now the 'Family Tree' tab also shows even if one is not logged in. Clicking on that takes one to the login/create account screen, once logged in the person can create a tree and find ancestors already on the tree to add. New FamilySearch is still available to members of the LDS Church although those members have been strongly urged to begin using Family Tree in its place.

On 16 April 2013 FamilySearch completely revamped the site design generally, including new features on Family Tree. Some of the new features include an interactive fan chart, and some printing capabilities. An improved color scheme for both the Family Tree and the rest of the site was also adopted, as some had complained that the colors of the previous site appeared 'washed out'. As to new FamilySearch, more features there have been shut down, more will be as well.

Integration with BYU Family History Archive

Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah is digitizing copyright-free family histories and placing them online, or via FamilySearch. Links to the digitized books are being added to the Family History Library catalog at FamilySearch. As of late 2009, this archive had nearly 50,000 digitized books, with approximately 5,000 new titles being posted online every two months on average.^{[citation needed]}

In early September 2012, it was reported that about 1200 to 1500 books were being scanned a month, which is at a slightly slower pace. Also, the digitized books were moved from the BYU website they had been on and are now found under a 'Books' tab in the main FamilySearch search page. A blogger at FamilySearch is now posting a listing of the latest digitizations starting with the June 2012 report.

See also

• GEDCOM
• Genealogy and baptism
• Immigrant Ancestors Project
• Personal Ancestral File
• RootsTech

External links

• FamilySearch.org