The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
Mormon church to put genealogical records on-line
This story was published March 14, 1999
The long-awaited day when cyber-surfing genealogists will be able to point their Web browsers toward Salt Lake City and access the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Family History Library resources via the Internet now seems certain to come soon.
In recent months, rumors that the Family History Department was working on a project that will place genealogical records on-line have spread like wildfire among genealogists.
Insistent reports that on-line access is about to become a reality finally forced taciturn LDS Church officials to publicly announce the project. They did so on March 4 by quietly posting a three-paragraph notice on the official LDS Web site. The relevant statements are:
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the following statement regarding current speculation about an Internet genealogy service sponsored by the Church:
"Sometime in March or April 1999, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will conduct a brief beta test of a new genealogical service for the Internet. The Church believes this service will greatly enhance the way people trace their family history. A formal announcement and launch is expected in the spring or summer of 1999. Details will not be available until then."
This announcement triggered a cautious wave of something approaching ecstasy among genealogists who have long hungered for just such a development. Now they anxiously wait to find out what services are about to become available over the Internet.
None should criticize the church for withholding details until the formal launch. Officials don't want to raise false expectations. The computer programming necessary to allow this access is about to be beta tested. When programmers finish writing the software, they will enlist the help of some people who will use it to, well, take it out for a test drive and help find hidden problems.
Any problems found will have to be fixed before the Family History Department can start offering on-line access. Then the world will be invited to travel to the archives via cyberspace to conduct genealogical research.
The Church announcement contains a magnificent understatement, "The church believes this service will greatly enhance the way people trace their family history."
When the site is opened to the public, look out! There will be massive cyber traffic, quite possibly including some major traffic jams. Interest among genealogists throughout the world will be intense. And the better the service is, the more traffic will be generated.
Millions of computerized genealogists have significant experience in on-line genealogy and are anxious for this new development. When the LDS Family History Department opens the flood gates, Internet genealogists will produce a gully washer of activity that would look familiar to Noah.
The LDS church has an estimated 2 billion rolls of microfilmed genealogical records, plus a mountain of books and microfiche.
They contain an estimated 13 billion names of people, which have been gathered from 110 nations. These can be used for research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and at any of some 3,200 branch research centers throughout the world.
I don't know what resources the church will initially make available via the Web. I'm not a beta tester and if I were, I couldn't tell you what I knew.
And I'm not going to speculate. Rumors are rampant and I don't wish to contribute to any of them.
For the uninitiated, just let me sound a cautionary note. The Family History Department can put only a tiny faction of its vast resources on-line. This initial venture will be important not only for whatever resources are about to become available to on-line researchers, but also as a ground-breaker.
I do confidently predict that success with initial offerings will lead to expanding on-line services in coming years. It's truly exciting to think that we soon will be able to turn our Web browsers toward Salt Lake City.