M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
“At Your Fingertips, On Your Time” - New Records Added to Growing Collection at FamilySearch.org
By Carol Kostakos Petranek
With each passing week, finding your ancestors grows easier as more indexes and digital images of original documents are uploaded to the Internet. Just this week, FamilySearch.org announced that 9 million historic records from Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , can now be viewed at pilot.familysearch.org (click on “view all collections”). These include Death Certificates 1803-1915 and Marriage Indexes 1885-1951.
“We encourage people to visit the site often to see what we're doing,” said Paul Nauta of FamilySearch Public Affairs. “We're uploading millions of images, and there's something new being added weekly.”
The latest technology is being applied to the uploaded databases. For example, the Philadelphia Death records include a searchable index, information extracted from each record, and a digitized version of the original death certificate. Researchers can quickly find an ancestor in the index, “mouse over” the name to see the extracted information, and then click on an icon to view, print, save and download the original record. It is a genealogist's dream come true!
Currently, only the index to the Philadelphia marriage records is online, but the marriage licenses are “in que” for indexing. Mr. Nauta emphasized that more than just names will be extracted from these licenses. “We'll take off other information as well,” he said. “Sometimes you can go back two generations depending on what is in the record.” Once the indexing process is complete, the marriage records will join the growing collection at FamilySearch.org, which is always available free of charge.
Indexers Needed!
FamilySearch has 15 high speed scanners running five days a week in an effort to digitize the 2-1/2 million rolls of microfilm housed in the Granite Mountain outside Salt Lake City. For these records to be of maximum benefit, they must be indexed. In fact, an army of indexers is needed! “We now have over 100,000 active volunteers who are indexing online,” Mr. Nauta said, “but that is not nearly enough to meet our needs. We are indexing over one million names per day, and we can use as many indexers as we can get.”
Of particular urgency is finding indexers with foreign language skills in Italian, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. There are current projects at pilot.familysearch.org that require these languages, with more on the way. Within the six to twelve months, there will be a need for indexers who familiar with Cyrillic (such as Russian) and Asian languages. Indexing is easy, fun and something that can be done by anyone of any age, at a personal pace and individual timeframe. Software is free of charge and is downloaded directly to a home computer. To learn more and to volunteer, go to www.familysearchindexing.org.
A Growing Venture
FamilySearch.org is a non-profit organization that maintains the world's largest collection of genealogical resources. As it seeks to upload its massive collection to the internet, it is seeking ways to maximize its resources and provide an efficient public service. “Our ability to let people search digital images before they're indexed is an important part of pilot.familysearch.org,” Mr. Nauta said. “We want people to look at images, such as the Florida State Census, work with them, and then give us feedback.”
To expand its capacities, FamilySearch.org is developing working partnerships with archivists, commercial companies and record custodians to get more records online as quickly as possible. For example, LDS missionary couples are currently onsite at the National Archives in Washington, DC, digitizing Civil War Pension Records which eventually will be uploaded to FamilySearch.org. A cooperative venture with Ancestry.com to share census indexes and records was recently announced. More such alliances are in the offing.
It is exciting to see the many collections worldwide coming to FamilySearch.org. Besides a multitude of U.S. resources, there are projects from Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Germany, France, Spain and the Czech Republic. “We invite the public to come back regularly and visit the site,” Mr. Nauta urged. “There are always new records online.”
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