Finding Records and Images on FamilySearch

Sharon Hintze April 2018

  1. From the home page, go to Search. Then choose your continent from the world map. Then look for the dropdown menu and choose your country, for example England.
  2. For each country, there are three groups of records: Indexed Historical Records, Image-only Records and Catalog Material. Indexed records can be searched by name. Image-only records are searchable much as a microfilm is searchable but have been ‘waypointed’ to help in finding the right place on the film. Catalogue Material is just what it says on the tin – these are LDS microfilms you can search as you would a physical microfilm. There are no ‘waypointing’ markers on these films. You will need to be logged in to see the images in any of the groups.
  1. Indexed records: I suggest opening the whole list of collections for a more targeted search. You are allowed to tick more than one collection to filter your search. You can also enter your person’s details in the boxes shown to search all indexed records at once.
  2. The little pictures of cameras at the side of a collection indicate whether or not an images is included with the event. Note that some collections have an image even though no camera is present.
  3. ‘England Births and Christenings’under indexed records is the old IGI births and christenings. Same with England Marriages.
  4. Indexing volunteers are adding to these collections every week, but British Isles films have not been a particular priority recently, as indexing covers more than 100 countries.
  1. Image-only records: Open the whole list of those collections. These need to be searched one collection at a time. The number of collections given is not accurate. Click on the collection that suits you. Then click on ‘Browse through XXX images’ to see the choices you should make to get to the right section of the film.
  2. Once you have found the right image, you may print it or download it as a .jpg file. You may also adjust contrast, rotate, or invert the colour from black on white to white on black.
  3. Catalogue Material (LDS films online): An attempt has been made to group available microfilms by type. Since there are so many films online, using these lists is less effective than searching for the desired film using the Family History Library Catalog.
  4. To search the Catalog, go to Search on the home page and click on Catalog. The more usual search is by place name. After identifying your place, you will be able to see all records filmed for that place. Some will have pictures of cameras next to them. Others will have a picture of a roll of film. These are not available online.
  5. If you know the film number you want to explore (you may have found it in an IGI entry), you can search by film number. Keyword searches are also useful. Or you can search for filmed books by author/title.
  6. Pictures of cameras have meaning as follows. As before, you can print, download or enhance the image.