The BYU Family History Library (FHL) is located in the Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) on the campus of

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

Provo, Utah Provo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Utah County, Utah, United States. It is south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front, and lies between the cities of Orem, Utah, Orem to the north and Springville, Utah, Springville to the south ...

. It is one of the Family History Centers devoted to assisting library patrons in

genealogical Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...

research. It began as a small section of the BYU library in 1962, and later expanded into a branch of the

FamilySearch Library The FamilySearch Library (FSL), formerly the Family History Library, is a genealogical research facility in downtown Salt Lake City. The library is open to the public free of charge and is operated by FamilySearch, the genealogical arm of the Ch ...

, the genealogical library of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...

, in 1964. It was formerly known as the Utah Valley Regional Family History Center. The BYU FHL houses a large collection of physical materials, such as microfilms, photographs, books, and other documents. It also offers access to digital materials, including genealogical databases and digitized newspapers. Scanners, computers, and printers are also available. The BYU FHL assists patrons online through its website, YouTube channel, and hosted webinars. It also offers classes in a variety of areas related to genealogy. Online Materials at the BYU FHL

History

After the establishment of the J. Reuben Clark library in 1961 (later called the Harold B. Lee Library), a few family history research materials were incorporated the following year. A branch of the genealogical library of the LDS Church was then established in the library in 1964. It contained the library of the Utah county Genealogical Historical Society and a catalog of the materials in the main genealogical library in Salt Lake City. The genealogical library branch was located on the 4th floor, with specialized reference personnel. With the help of other library workers, Eve Nielsen recataloged the Genealogical Society of Utah's Utah county records over three years. In 1973, construction on an expansion of the BYU library began, and the Utah Valley Branch Genealogical Library expanded along with it. In the 1990s, the BYU Family History Library (then called the Utah Valley Regional Family History Center) offered to the public classes conducted by research consultants on various computer research tools. These included courses on

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Personal Ancestral File Personal Ancestral File (PAF) was a free genealogy software program provided by FamilySearch, a website operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was first released in 1983, last updated in 2002, and formally discontinued in ...

, and

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

Personal Ancestral File. In 2000, the BYU FHL moved into the new addition of the Harold B. Lee Library. Before

FamilySearch FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is part of the Church's Family History Department (FHD). The Fami ...

developed its own FamilySearch Indexing project, much of the scanning of genealogical materials for the FamilySearch website took place at the FHL. As of 2008, around 50 different classes were offered by the FHL, including instruction on conducting international research.

Present day

Today, the BYU Family History Library is located on level 2 of the Harold B. Lee Library. It is staffed with librarians, student employees, and family history

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...

. These volunteer missionaries help visitors to the BYU FHL conduct research using the FHL's online and print resources. They also assist members of the LDS Church in preparing the names of ancestors for vicarious ordinances. Faculty, students, and community patrons can access genealogical databases (such as

Ancestry.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The ...

, Fold3, and

FindMyPast Findmypast is a UK-based online genealogy service owned, since 2007, by British company DC Thomson. The website hosts billions of searchable records of census, directory and historical record information. It originated in 1965 when a group of ge ...

), digital scanners, and computers with genealogical software. The BYU FHL's array of scanners digitize materials such as

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

, photographs, negatives, loose documents, and bound books. Patrons can also print large fan charts at the library. The FHL houses almost 500,000 microfilms, obtained from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Digitized historical newspapers from the US and UK are also available. The BYU Family History Library website links to resources for patrons' research and offers virtual assistance. In order to reach people remotely, the FHL offers

webinars Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-le ...

on a variety of topics related to genealogy. Upcoming webinars are announced on the BYU FHL's website. The FHL also operates a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel with genealogy tutorials. With the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the library began operating a virtual reference desk. The FHL currently offers virtual classes on Sundays in addition to its webinars.

References

External links

*
BYU Center for Family History and Genealogy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Byu Family History Library

Family History Library The FamilySearch Library (FSL), formerly the Family History Library, is a genealogical research facility in downtown Salt Lake City. The library is open to the public free of charge and is operated by FamilySearch, the genealogical arm of the Ch ...

Genealogy and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Libraries in Utah University and college academic libraries in the United States Genealogical libraries in the United States

History

Present day

See also

References

External links