Family History Advancements 2013

Family History Advancements 2013 - March 21, 2013

If you've been to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah over the last 6 years you've noticed some changes.  Chief among them is the movement from shelves of books to more and more computer stations.

The movement has been possible thanks to conversions of books to film and digital images.  This is providing for more access to film or book information from computer stations as digital images.  To those converting these films and books to digital images we give thanks.  Thank you to all the workers both volunteer and paid.  The work of indexing of films in catalogs and indexing of images also moves forward.

The number of digital/CDROM/DVD stations has increased. Allowing for moving images to USB drives and Media rather than having to print and scan.

Thus the move to more digital has not only begun but has increased.  Now researchers can access the Library Catalog from anywhere and access digital images.  In some cases this is without indexes to images but that is improving also.

Does this mean the need for the Library is gone.  Far from it.
The number of books and films imaged is still quite small but is growing.
Filming continues all over the world and book acquisitions and donations continue.

But their is great hope.  These improvements in resources are allowing more and more access for users online.  And what the Main Family History doesn't have filmed or digitized is sometimes available through other libraries.  Brigham Young University (BYU), New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) and many others. Subscription services continue to publish more digitized images at Ancestry.com, Fold3.com, Newspaperarchive.com, and many others.

Newspapers are digitizing or partnering with others to digitize.
Volunteers are adding to databases of cemeteries.
Local governments, including towns, cities, counties, and federal government are providing more or working with partners to provide more.

Temple submission work can now be done from a computer anywhere as can many of these libraries, subscription companies, universities, newspapers, and other repositories.

While progress is definitely being made their is much more still to be done.  Yes, the future is bright.  Unfortunately, with progress also comes set backs.  Legislators changing laws to restrict access to documents used for genealogical purposes have in some cases blocked the use of already filmed documents. Some churches have closed off their records which were once available.  So with the advancements we have some setbacks.  But the improvements are many.

To those again helping to make these images and data more accessible. We salute you. We thank you for your service and look forward to the continuing to make available more and more books, films and records for research.

Sincerely, James.