I recently spoke to a person who is beta testing the LDS Church’s updated genealogy site, and when I asked what he thought, his one-word response was “Awesome!”. Currently the Church’s regular site is found at www.familysearch.org, but from what I’ve heard, the new site will be nothing less than revolutionary. According to this article in the Deseret News, the Church is planning on opening the floodgates of their Granite Vaults, and creating the ultimate in genealogy websites. And here’s the best thing: It’ll all be free!
If you have followed genealogy news as of late, you have likely read about the falling out of sorts between Ancestry.com and the LDS Church, with the result of Ancestry.com removing free access to their site from Family History Centers (except for those databases which they collaborated with the Church on).
To my knowledge, the exact details of the situation have not been released, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Ancestry.com charges $35/month to access all the areas of their site, and when it is all said and done, the Church will not be charging anything for essentially the same information. This is great news for the countless family historians (like me) who cannot afford the high fees.
Now, here’s the really exciting part: you can be part of this genealogical revolution. The Church is letting average people like you and me help them index much of the information. If you direct your browser to www.familysearchindexing.org, you can download a little program that downloads census records, or death records, and you can be part of the work by indexing the information so people will be able to search it for free. The site has several tutorials, that I recommend you take prior to starting. It is tons of fun, and helps move the work forward as well. I’ve set a goal to index 1000 records a month, which breaks down to just 33 a day, but you can do as much or as little as you want.
So what are you waiting for? Get involved and help move the revolution forward.
