Alan E. Mann, AG

alan.familyhistory@gmail.com Accredited Genealogist

OGSA Summer Conference 2007 www.alanmann.com/articles

Thursday, 16 August 2007 2:20 – 3:25 pm

Introduction to the Family History Center

The Family History Library (FHL) is the flagship library of the Genealogical Society of Utah and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This library houses the books, microfilm, microfiche, and electronic data collected through the past 100+ years. The LDS Church also owns and operates nearly 5000 smaller libraries devoted to family history research throughout the world. These libraries are called Family History Centers (FHC or just Center).

Each Center is run by local LDS Church leaders using volunteers in the area. Except in the Salt Lake FHL, they have no paid staff. Their hours of operation, amount of equipment, number of materials, and what they keep on hand locally varies according to the direction of local Church leaders. To find a Center near you, visit http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp.

Each Center has a “core collection” of materials sent to them, along with the ability to order films or fiche from Salt Lake City or a regional Operations Center if too far from Salt Lake City. The local FHC usually charges the cost of shipping of films to their patrons. In addition to the core collection, Centers have a growing collection of electronic data.

Another way the FHL makes its collection of materials and expertise available is through the web site FamilySearch.org. For an explanation of the FamilySearch website and how to use it, see http://www.alanmann.com/articles/fsi.htm.

The FHL has been digitizing their collection of family history books. As these books are digitized and made available, a link is added to the Family History Library Catalog, (FHLC) available online at www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp. For an example of a digital book in the FHLC, see www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=titledetails&titleno=23963&disp=A+genealogical+register+of+the+descendan. Using the FHLC is the key to getting the most from your Center.

Technically, all of the family history efforts of the LDS Church are managed by the Church’s “Family and Church History” Department (FCHD). The FCHD is also responsible for FamilySearch.org, which is currently offering electronic databases to anyone connected to the Internet for free. It may help to understand that currently, Centers and the Family History Library have separate management. Centers are run by the WorldWide Support Division, and the FHL by the Library division.

For information from an outside perspective, see http://genealogy.about.com/library/weekly/aa042400a.htm.

To prepare for a visit to the FHL in Salt Lake City, see http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHL/frameset_library.asp?PAGE=library_preparing.asp and http://www.alanmann.com/articles/fhldesktop.htm.

Recent news announcements are the first phases of an effort to offer all the FCHD’s resources worldwide through FamilySearch.org. I reproduce here two announcements that appear on the web site:

Popular web sites available for free through local Family History Centers

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—FamilySearch has announced the addition of more popular online genealogy services available for free through worldwide family history centers. The expanded services are in keeping with FamilySearch’s goal to provide increased access to records that will assist individuals in family history pursuits. New resources include:

Footnote (www.footnote.com) is a subscription-based website that features searchable, original documents that provide users a view of the events, places and people that shaped the American nation and the world. The site will have over 25 million digital images by the end of 2007. FamilySearch and Footnote announced today the first project of the new Records Access program—to digitize and index the historic U.S. Revolutionary War Pension records. Additional projects with FamilySearch are under development. Through the program, FamilySearch helps archives and other record custodians digitize, preserve, and publish their collections online. A key component of the program allows FamilySearch and archives to team with genealogy websites like Footnote to provide significant collections of genealogical and historical records online. Individuals with Footnote subscriptions will be able to sign in with the same Footnote username and password they use at home in order to save, annotate, and upload content.

Godfrey Memorial Library (www.godfrey.org) has an extensive collection of essential resources to assist genealogical and historical research. Resources include newspapers, city and business directories, vital records, printed census records, state, county, and local histories, as well as numerous family histories, family bible records, and service and pension records.

Heritage Quest/ProQuest online includes the complete set of U.S. Federal Census images from 1790 to 1930 including names and indexes for many of the sets. Users will be able to find people and places located in over 20,000 published family and local histories and PERSI, an index of over 1.9 million genealogy and local history articles. Other online databases include Revolutionary War Pension, Bounty-Land Warrant Application files, and the Freedman Bank Records. Access to this service will be limited to 1,400 family history centers in North America. Patrons should contact their local family history center to see if this service is available. Family history center directors should contact Family History Center Support with questions.

Kindred Konnections (www.kindredkonnections.com) has over 230 million pedigree linked names with submitter information. The online pedigrees are not merged, but maintained by individual patrons. There are additional databases of birth, marriage, death, and census records that are automatically searched along with the pedigree linked data. Segments of pedigrees can be downloaded.

World Vital Records (www.worldvitalrecords.com) provides access to research helps and has a wide variety of international records, including more than 60 parish registers, Scottish death records, UK marriages, and Irish prisoner records. There are more than 300 newspapers with 100,000 pages added a month, and over 500 online databases, including vital, military, land, pension records, reference materials, family histories, maps, gazetteers, and international coops. With the recent Quintin Publications partnership, World Vital Records will soon have more than 10,000 databases online. At least one new database is added every business day.

Three genealogical libraries pool their collections in massive digitization effort

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—Thousands of published family histories, city and county histories, historic city directories, and related records are coming to the Internet. The Allen County Public Library (ACPL) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library, and FamilySearch's Family History Library in Salt Lake City announced the joint project today. When complete, it will be the most comprehensive collection of city and county histories on the Web—and access will be free at www.familyhistoryarchive.byu.edu.

©Copyright 2007 by Alan E. Mann, AG and Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. Written permission to reproduce all or part of this syllabus material in any format, including photocopying, data retrieval, or the Internet, must be secured in advance from the copyright holder.