BFM Genealogical Research
  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • LOCAL HISTORY
  • LOCAL ARCHIVES
  • ABOUT US
  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • LOCAL HISTORY
  • LOCAL ARCHIVES
  • ABOUT US

Family Search website

1/9/2013

0 Comments

 

What is the Family Search website about, you ask?

I have been working with a friend who is searching for her family in census records and she asked me, "What is that Family Search website all about?"  The answer is very simple: while you have to pay to use some popular genealogy research sites, like Ancestry.com or Fold3.com, there is a free place to go to look for information about your family.
Picture

God bless the Mormons, literally and figuratively.  You see, the core principle of the religion is that we are all related, back to Adam and Eve.  And wouldn’t you know that the collective work of the members is to prove just that.  

Members have been creating family trees for all of us...as well as photographing birth, marriage, and death records from all over the world for decades.  Images on microfilm are actually stored in a mountain vault in Salt Lake City, Utah. One way to view the records is  to hop on a plane for Utah.  Another is by ordering them through a local Family Search Center run by the church. 

Wonderfully, technological advances with computers and the internet have spurred on a herculean effort by the Mormon Church to digitize the microfilmed records and eventually make them all available on their own website. In the case where an original document has yet be digitally scanned (or the image is only available through a  paid partner site like Ancestry.com), the general information found in the record has been added to the searchable database. Using the different search filters (name, date, life event - like birth, or residence place) you can try to find a census record, or church records that were photographed by a team of Mormons taking over a town for a week.

You can find Family Search at www.familysearch.org.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Beth Finch McCarthy
    Professional Genealogist

    Picture


    Subjects

    All
    American History
    Books
    Cemeteries
    Censuses
    Colonial History
    Current Events
    Federalist History
    General Research Tips
    Hidden History
    Libraries
    Local History
    Maps
    Marlborough History
    Massachusetts History
    Military History
    Naming Patterns
    Northborough History
    Old Letters
    Record Collections
    Schools
    Westborough History


    Archive

    November 2021
    October 2021
    February 2018
    October 2017
    July 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2016
    December 2015
    August 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    August 2013
    January 2013
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    August 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011

Website created and managed by Beth Finch McCarthy (2022)