FamilySearch is a
nonprofit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
and
website
A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...
offering
genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by
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 ...
and is part of the Church's Family History Department (FHD).
The Family History Department was originally established in 1894, as the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU); 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. Facilitating the performance of
Latter-day Saint ordinances for deceased relatives is another major aim of the organization. Although it requires user account registration, it offers free access to its resources and service online at FamilySearch.org. In addition, FamilySearch offers personal assistance at more than 6,400
FamilySearch centers in 140 countries, including the
FamilySearch Library in
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...
.
The Family Tree section allows
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...
to be contributed to the genealogical database. , there are over 1.5 billion individuals in the tree and the historical records database contains over 5.7 billion digital images, including digitized books, digitized microfilm, and other digital records.
History
Genealogical Society of Utah
GSU, the predecessor of FamilySearch, was founded on 1 November 1894. Its purpose was to create a genealogical library to be used both by its members and other people, to share educational information about
genealogy
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 ...
, and to gather genealogical records in order to perform
religious ordinances for the dead. It was founded under the direction of Church leaders, when the
First Presidency
Among many churches in the Latter Day Saint movement, the First Presidency (also known as the Quorum of the Presidency of the Church) is the highest presiding or governing body. Present-day denominations of the movement led by a First Presidency ...
appointed
Franklin D. Richards as the first president.
The society published the ''Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine'' from 1910 to 1940.
The GSU began microfilming records of genealogical importance in 1938. In 1963, the microfilm collection was moved to the newly completed
Granite Mountain Records Vault for long-term preservation.
In 1975, the GSU became the Church's Genealogical Department, which later became the FHD. At that time, its head officer was renamed president from executive director, starting during
Theodore M. Burton's term.
However, the title "President of the Genealogical Society of Utah" and other GSU titles were still used and bestowed upon department officers.
In 2000, the Church consolidated its Family History and Historical departments into the Family and Church History Department, and
Richard E. Turley Jr. became managing director of the new department and president of the GSU. Later this decision was reversed and the Family History Department was separated from the
Church History Department, becoming its own department.
In 2008, the
Vatican
Vatican may refer to:
Geography
* Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy
* Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City
* Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome
* Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...
issued a statement calling the practice known as
baptism for the dead "erroneous" and directing
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
dioceses to keep parish records from Latter-day Saints performing
genealogical research.
Presidents of the Genealogical Society of Utah
FamilySearch
In 1998, the GSU began digital imaging of records and in about August 1998 the decision was made by Church leaders to build a genealogical website. In May 1999, the website first opened to the public as ''FamilySearch''. The beta version, released April 1, almost immediately went offline, overloaded because of high popularity.
[ The article refers to the "Family History Department" of the LDS church as the entity behind the creation of the original FamilySearch website.] Only a few days after the official launch, the website had received an estimated 100 million hits. To handle the load, site visitors were only given access to the site for 15 minutes at a time. In November 1999, 240 million names were added, bringing the total number of entries to 640 million.
In 2009, the Church launched a collaborative tree known as "New FamilySearch". It was the precursor to the current "FamilySearch Family Tree", and was only available to church members. The system was an attempt to combine multiple genealogical submissions to FamilySearch's databases into one single tree, but it did not allow users to edit information that they had not submitted. It also was difficult to add sources to individuals in the tree or determine what was the correct information among multiple submissions. By April 2011, plans were in place to redesign the database into a more collaborative platform.
In 2011, the FamilySearch website received a major redesign. The previous site had allowed users to only search one database at a time, but the new version allowed sitewide searches of multiple databases. It also included the addition of more databases as well as some digitized and indexed microfilms.
On 16 November 2012, it was announced that the new Family Tree database would be available to all users of New FamilySearch, and that the New FamilySearch database would eventually be phased out. On 5 March 2013, it was announced that Family Tree would now be available to everyone, whether or not they were members of the Church.
On 16 April 2013, FamilySearch completely revamped the site design generally, with new features and a changed color scheme. Some of the new features include an interactive fan chart and some printing capabilities, as well as the ability to add photos to Family Tree.
In February 2014, FamilySearch announced partnerships with
Ancestry.com,
findmypast and
MyHeritage
MyHeritage is an online genealogy platform with web, mobile, and Genealogy software, software products and services, introduced by the Israeli company MyHeritage in 2003. Users of the platform can obtain their family trees, upload and browse thro ...
, which includes sharing massive amounts of their databases with those companies, and members of the Church receiving free subscriptions with these companies. They also have a standing relationship with BillionGraves, in which the photographed and indexed images of graves are both searchable on FamilySearch and are linked to individuals in the family tree. At the end of 2015, FamilyTree had 1.1 billion persons added by 2.47 million contributors.
In August 2017, FamilySearch discontinued distribution of physical microfilm to its family history centers due to large-scale availability of digital images of those films and planned digitization of remaining films. In May 2018, FamilySearch added and digitized its 2 billionth record.
In September 2020, FamilySearch announced that it now includes 8 billion names, 3.2 billion digital images, and 490,000 digital books, with over 1 million new records each day. 7 billion names from almost every country were added within the last 10 years.
Activities
RootsTech
Since 2011, FamilySearch International has organized an annual family history and technology
conference
A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...
called
RootsTech. It is held annually in the
Salt Palace Convention Center,
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...
. The conference is attended by professional and amateur genealogists, technology developers, and members of the Church. In 2014 there were nearly 13,000 people in attendance. As of 2020, it is the world's largest family history and technology conference in the world. It is the successor to three former conferences: the Conference on Computerized Family History and Genealogy, the Family History Technology Workshop
and the FamilySearch Developers Conference.
Website
Historical Records
The main service of the FamilySearch website is to offer access to digital images and indexes of genealogical records. These images can be searched along with a number of databases. While access to the records is always free, some records have restricted access, and can only be viewed at a FamilySearch Center, at an Affiliate Library, or by members of the Church. FamilySearch.org also contains the catalog of the
FamilySearch 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; 490,000 books, serials, and other formats; and 4,500 periodicals.
FamilySearch Family Tree
FamilySearch FamilyTree (FSFT) is a "one world tree," or a unified database that aims to contain one entry for each person recorded in genealogical records. All FamilySearch users are able to add persons, link them to existing persons or merge duplicates. Sources, images, and audio files can also be attached to persons in the tree.
There are also several features specific to the membership of the Church, facilitating
temple
A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...
ordinance work. In keeping with an agreement with Jewish groups and to prevent abuse, performing ordinances for Holocaust victims or celebrities results in account suspension until the researcher proves a legitimate family connection to the subject of their search. FamilySearch allows users to input same-sex marriages or other unions.
Indexing projects
Searchable indexes of the records on FamilySearch are created by volunteers of the
FamilySearch Indexing program. To ensure greater accuracy, each batch of records is indexed by an indexer and is then checked by a more experienced indexer. Indexing volunteers need not be members of the Church. 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. In April 2013, FamilySearch Indexing completed their goal to offer 1 billion indexed records online.
Education
FamilySearch offers free lessons on FamilySearch.org to help people learn how to 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.
In 2007, it was decided to start a
FamilySearch Research 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
Plone is a free software, free and open source software, open source content management system (CMS) built on top of the Zope application server. Plone is positioned as an enterprise CMS and is commonly used for intranets and as part of the web ...
wiki software product, but it was soon discovered that
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...
software was much more suitable, so in January 2008 it was moved to the MediaWiki platform. In the intervening years it was rolled out in other languages, and as of July 2014 it was available in 11 languages. The other language wikis are found via links at the bottom of the wiki homepage. The wiki in English had over 79,500 articles and over 150,000 registered users as of July 2014.
Facilities
FamilySearch Library
FamilySearch operates the FamilySearch Library in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
. The library was built in 1985 as a successor to previous libraries run by the Genealogical Society of Utah. The library is open to the public and has a large collection of international genealogical materials, including microfilm, books, and digital materials. The library's catalog and many of their digital materials are located at the FamilySearch website.
Granite Mountain Records Vault
FamilySearch stores copies of their records in a dry, environment-controlled facility built into
Granite Mountain in
Little Cottonwood Canyon, near
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
. The storage facility is known as the Granite Mountain Records Vault. The vault stores over 2.4 million rolls of microfilm and 1 million microfiches.
FamilySearch Centers
FamilySearch operates over 6,300 FamilySearch Centers in 140 countries around the world as of 2023. The centers are branches of the FamilySearch Library, often located in meetinghouses 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 ...
. Their purpose is to help people with their genealogy and provide access to and help with genealogical materials and software provided by FamilySearch.
See also
*
*
GEDCOM
*
Immigrant Ancestors Project
*
List of Mormon family organizations
*
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 ...
References
External links
* Taylor, Rebecca M
"A Century of Genealogy"''
The Friend'', March 1994.
"Genealogical Society: A century of steady growth and development" ''
Church News'', November 1994.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Familysearch
1894 establishments in Utah Territory
Genealogy and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
American genealogy websites
Genealogy databases
Organizations established in 1894