U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND FAMILYSEARCH TEAM UP TO DIGITIZE AND INDEX MOUNTAINS OF HISTORIC DOCUMENTS 23 October 2007

Landmark agreement will lead to the digitization of millions of genealogical and historical documents

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) of the United States and FamilySearch today announced an agreement that will lead to the digitization of millions of historical documents over time. The bulk of the digital images and related indices will be freely accessible through as well as 4,500 family history centers worldwide, or at the National Archives and its Regional Centers.

The agreement is the result of several years of discussions between the two organizations and NARA's new long-term strategy for digitizing and making available major segments of its vast collection online to the public. Ultimately, the records digitized by FamilySearch will consist of court, military, land, and other government records that include information of genealogical significance for family historians. The records date as early as 1754 to as late as the 1990s.

Almost all of the records in the National Archives currently are not readily accessible to patrons who visit the National Archives or one of its regional facilities. The newly digitized and indexed records produced under the agreement will be available online—greatly increasing patron access.

"For a number of years, we have had a very productive relationship with FamilySearch,"

said Professor Allen Weinstein, archivist of the United States. "This agreement expands our relationship to enable online access to some of the most popular and voluminous records in our holdings. It is an exciting step forward for our institutions and for the American people," he added.

Under the new agreement, FamilySearch will be operating highly specialized digital cameras 5 days a week at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. FamilySearch intends to extend the digitization services to select regional facilities at a later date. That means there will be a continuous flow of new data for genealogy buffs to explore for years to come. It also means FamilySearch will be able to digitize the thousands of microfilms it has already created from NARA's holdings—providing access to millions of images for genealogists to search from the convenience of their home computers with Internet access.

The first fruit of this effort is a portion of a very large collection of Civil War records, already underway. In this pilot project, FamilySearch will digitize the first 3,150 Civil War widow pension application files (approximately 500,000 pages). After digitization, these historical documents will be indexed and posted online by Footnote.com with the indices also available for free on FamilySearch intends to do all 1,280,000 of these files over the coming years. FS is working with national archives and record custodians worldwide to preserve and increase access to records of genealogical significance. It is currently working on projects in over 45 countries.

The National Archives carries out its mission through a nationwide network of archives, records centers, and Presidential Libraries, and on the Internet at

YORK FAMILY HISTORY CENTER NOW HAS EXCITING NEW RESEARCH SITES AVAILABLE

John and Bonnie Morningstar, co-directors, have announced that the York Family History Center is now offering new sites to patrons for family history research free of charge. The center still has a version of Ancestry.com available, but it is not as complete as it once was. To help offset this, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has now provided the following sites. Come into the center to check out what is now available:

Footnote (

Footnote 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. Footnote is currently working with FamilySearch to index the American Revolutionary War Pension files. Additional projects with FamilySearch are under development.

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 (

Godfrey Memorial Library 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 (

Heritage Quest 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 was limited to 1,400 family history centers in North America. We are happy to announce that the York FHC is one of the centers that received access to Heritage Quest. You can also access this at home with some library cards. Martin Memorial Library card is not one.

Kindred Konnections (

Kindred Konnections 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 (

(

World Vital Records 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.

American Antiquarian SocietyCollections to be Available Online
ProQuest announced a partnership with the American Antiquarian Society
(AAS) to place a large collection of the Society's materials online and make it available on microfilm. The material will be available through local libraries which subscribe to the Proquest service. One of the popular subscription services is HeritageQuest Online, which has a large collection of genealogy data online. For our members living near Santa Clara, HeritageQuest is available at the Santa Clara and Saratoga libraries as well as other Santa Clara County libraries. The American Antiquarian Society is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. Their library contains genealogical material focusing on early North American lines of descent, including French-Canadian genealogies. The library is highly regarded by genealogists, and by scholars working on
biographical, historical, and literary topics.

TOOLS FOR FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

There are two basic forms that the genealogist uses to compile information:

  1. Family Group Sheet – you should fill out one of these for each family. The family group sheet has space for father and mother and their children, along with basic information – birth, marriage, death dates and location of each event, plus additional information.
  2. Pedigree Chart – this is a generation chart of only couples with your name being first. Then the blocks split for your parents. Attached to your father are your paternal grandparents’ names and attached to your mother are your maternal grandparents’ names, etc. There will not be any children recorded on the pedigree chart.

When you begin your research, you will use the family group sheets as work copies. Eventually you will want to type your family history information into PAF, which you can download free at But the Family History Center has these forms available in the FH Center, and our staff will help you fill them out.

You can also go online and print out blank ones. After you download PAF, in the File Menu, there is a file called “Print Reports.” Click on that and then click on the “Print Reports” tab. Check the circle “Blank Report” and then print.

HOW IMPORTANT IS DOING FAMILY HISTORY

Our Heavenly Father has gently told us throughout history, mostly through the mouths of his prophets, that he would like us to do our family history.

  1. First, He lets us know in every edition of the standard works that he will send Elijah, the prophet, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers: Malachi 4:5; Doctrine and Covenants 2:1-3; Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 25:5-6; Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith History 1:38-39.
  2. The angel Moroni quoted the Malachi prophecy to Joseph Smith twice on September 21, 1823. From Pres. Hinckley, “ To me it is significant that in the opening of this dispensation, the foretelling of this remarkable family history work occurred on the initial visit of Moroni to the boy Joseph Smith…I repeat my brethren and sisters, it is tremendously significant to me that this declaration, this repetition of the wondrous words of Malachi concerning work for the dead, was given to the boy Joseph four years before he was allowed to take the plates from the hill. It was given before he received the priesthood, before he was baptized, and well before the church was organized. It says much concerning the priority of this work in the plan of the Lord. Can anyone doubt the importance with which it is regarded by the Almighty?” (Let Your Hearts Rejoice Video, President Gordon B. Hinckley, 1995) Con’t. p. 3
  3. Our ancestors agreed [in the pre-existence] to become pilgrims…to live in a time when there were tremendous physical hardships, and when the important authority and sealing power of the priesthood was not to be found anywhere on the earth. What a tremendous sacrifice they made. We agreed – in fact, we “promised” our ancestors (our fathers)…(those who would come to earth before the gospel was restored) – that we would provide the saving ordinances for them because we would live in a time when the sealing power of the priesthood by which all things bound on earth are bound in heaven was available. (Christ and the New Covenant, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, 1997, p. 297)
  4. Baptisms for the dead were performed in the time of Paul. Cor. 15:29. “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?”
  5. The Lord instructed the Saints to build a temple at Kirtland so that Elijah and other prophets could come to restore the keys. Elijah restored the keys to open family history work.
  6. The Lord instructed the Saints to build a temple in Nauvoo so that they could do their temple work before they left for the West. Many would die before the Western temples were completed.
  7. President Hinckley has directed the building and the proposed building of 90 temples since 1995 when he became president of the church.
  8. The Lord has provided the technology for us to organize and file our family history with computers, software, and websites. The progression in family history in the past year alone is an amazing historical feat.
  9. From Joseph Smith to the present, our prophets have admonished us to do our family history. Joseph Fielding Smith: “Because the greatest responsibility in this world God has laid upon us, is to seek after our dead.”
  10. Redeeming the Dead is one of the three-fold missions of the church.

“Often Church members suffer from a lack of perspective, perhaps understandably, as to the vastness and intensity of the Lord’s work in the spirit world. The scope is enormous! Demographers estimate that some 60 to 70 billion people have lived on this planet so far. Without diminishing in any way the importance of the absolutely vital and tandem work on this side of the veil, we do need a better grasp of things as they really will be. (Jacob 4:13) Otherwise, we can so easily come to regard family history as a quaint hobby and its resulting temple work as something we will get around to later. Not only does the word vastness characterize the work there, but so does intensity.” (The Promise of Discipleship, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, 2001, p. 105)

We hope that your hearts will be touched by the words of the various prophets and scriptures that have reminded us of our obligation to seek after our dead and to attend the temple. We family history consultants will assist you where we can. We have experienced such joy as we link our families together, and we would like you to feel that same happiness. Many people that use our centers are not members of the church, so they cannot take their ancestors to the pinnacle of temple work. You have that great knowledge and privilege. If you are not working on your family history, let us help you get started.

What should I be doing until the New FamilySearch rolls out?

You need to be concentrating on ‘cleaning up your own PAF data’. Need help? Call the Sonneborns @ 757-2331. We make house calls.

What is the status of PAF 5.0?

PAF 5.0 is not dead, as reported. It is being taught vigorously here. As a matter of fact, I have not met anyone who uses a different program in their personal research. They have discussed the revisions many of the software companies are doing to interface with nFS, whatever that means. Nobody here knows the definition of "interface." Time will tell on that issue. What I learned is that you need to clean up your file, get as many errors out of your personal file and use it to assist in building your file on nFS. p.4

GEDCOM files and the New FamilySearch

Do not use a GEDCOM to input data into nFS, unless you absolutely cannot find a person or family. If you can't find the next person in the chain, GEDCOM only that person or family, then try to find the next link. The more folks you GEDCOM into nFS, the more names you will have to combine. Most people will be surprised by how many names they will find. I have combined names back to the 4th GGFather in all my lines and have not had to add a single person to my file. I have actually discovered people whom I missed in my personal research that came into families as I was doing the combining process. Those who did pop up, I have confirmed that they did belong in the family.

A NEW Temple Ready mindset

The mindset has to be completely changed on how nFS determines how or what information is needed to clear people for temple ordinances. The nFS program does not place emphasis on dates and places, like Temple Ready. The emphasis is now on family links; dates and places are still important to help us identify people. This is one of the reasons we are asked not to guess at locations but try to do enough research to find the actual place.
If you don't know the place, leave it blank. There is still enough information to identify the person because he will be linked to a family. This will be a complete 180 turn for most people, but it works. I was very skeptical when it was introduced to me, but I have discovered that it does work.

Temple Ordinance work since 1 Jan 2007

I reported earlier that names cleared for temple work through the use of Temple Ready after 1 Jan 2007 would not be in the nFS system. These names would be entered over a period of time. Today while combining names in my file, I found that names I cleared through Temple Ready this past May are in the nFS system, showing the temple work as "In Process," but the names I cleared in September are still not in the nFS system. I don't know how quickly names are being inputted. Because of this, there will be a gap of time when members may duplicate temple work for names submitted through Temple Ready and those submitted through nFS. They are trying to narrow that window, but it will exist until nFS is completely rolled out. By the way, I have heard of no scheduled time frame for the complete roll out.

TRY IT….YOU’LL LIKE IT

There is definitely a learning curve with this program [nFS = New Family Search]. Those who have
continued to use the program have been converted to its effectiveness.
Those who do not like the program have not continued to use it and have not become familiar with it. It is just like a using new camera; you have to play with it until you understand what all the buttons are for.