Genealogy bounty coming to Web
Mormons set to bring part of vast collection of records online
By Margie Wylie
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
- Much to the delight of genealogists, the Mormons are
preparing to make some of their vast holdings of family records
available on the World Wide Web for the first time next month, if
not sooner.
THE NEW WEB SITE (
www.familysearch.org) won't officially
launch until mid-April, but it is expected to "go live" for testing any day
now. Church officials originally planned to leave the site open to all during
the test period. But for fear of being swamped, they now may limit access
to official testers with assigned passwords.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints collects genealogical
records of all kinds because the Mormons believe it is important to
perform religious rites on behalf of dead ancestors. It has the world's
largest collection of such data.
Genealogy is one of the most popular subjects on the Internet. As
more information goes online, it seems to create more genealogists. About
100 million Americans have at least dabbled in it, and 19 million actively
research their family history, according to a 1995 Maritz Marketing
Research study for American Demographics magazine.
Rootsweb (
www.rootsweb.org) has more than 200,000 subscribers to
3,000 e-mail lists about genealogy. The number of subscribers is growing
rapidly, according to John V. Wylie, a professional genealogist from Grand
Prairie, Texas. Wylie is a co-founder of GENTECH (
www.gentech.org), a
non-profit society to help genealogists use technology.
Mormon Church officials are vague about what Web surfers can expect
to find on their new site, but that hasn't dampened genealogists' enthusiasm.
"I think the reaction is probably going to be unanimously, 'Wow! It's
about time!"' said Marthe Arends, editor of the newsletter Pioneers Online
(
www.eskimo.com/~mnarends), based in Bellevue, Wash. The newsletter
helps genealogists use the Internet.
With 2 billion rolls of microfilm, 700,000 microfiches and 280,000
books, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (
www.lds.org) is
the ultimate source for many genealogists. Anyone can use the materials at
the Family History Library in Salt Lake City free of charge. They may also
borrow materials for a small handling fee at any one of the library's 3,200
branches.
A tiny, but important portion of that is available by computer. In
1978, the church began computerizing some of its records in a program
dubbed FamilySearch. The program is currently only offered at libraries
and branch libraries.
The church won't sell FamilySearch to individuals because it can't
afford to offer everyone support for DOS, the older operating system the
program requires. That makes it the perfect candidate for putting on the
Web.
One of the first FamilySearch databases expected to be offered on line
is Ancestral File. The simple database lets surfers type in names and find
family trees compiled by other researchers, mostly amateurs.
"As useful as that can be, the information is only as good as the
person who submitted it," said Arends. "I'd personaly like to see more
primary sources being put online."
The International Genealogical Index, also part of FamilySearch, lets
researchers search millions of marriage, death and birth records taken from
records in the United States and abroad. The church won't say if the index
will be offered on the Web site.
Even with thousands of church volunteers typing the information from
original records into computers, "We can digitize only a tiny fraction of
what we capture each year," said David Rencher, manager of public
outreach for the Family History Department of the Mormon Church.
Still, the output is impressive.
Over the past year, the church not only updated FamilySearch, but
also released five sets of CD-ROMs reaching back 450 years and ranging
from Australian Vital Records to the 1851 British Census. In 1999, it will
release the full 1880 U.S. Census and the 1881 British Census, both on
CD-ROM.
Church volunteers are also working on a 17 million-person database of
Ellis Island immigrants that will be released on CD-ROM by the church,
posted online by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation
(
www.ellisisland.org) and made available at the new American Family
Immigrant History Center due to open late next year on Ellis Island.
"There's no doubt the interest in genealogy is very high out there,"
said Peg Zitko, director of public affairs for the Statue of Liberty-Ellis
Island Foundation.
"Our Web site has gotten 67 million hits in 14 months, and we get
hundreds of e-mails every week. Ninety percent of them are looking for
genealogy records."
"Certainly computerization and the Net have made it easier to do
genealogy," said Rencher. "You get on a browser and there's a link to a
genealogy site and you just go with it and before you know it, you're up
all night searching."
Raymond Stallcup knows just what Rencher means. More at home
driving the West Texas desert in his pickup truck than sitting in a library,
this "old oil hand" from Monahans, Texas, figures he has logged hundreds
of hours researching his family name on the Internet over the last year. "I
don't know that I would have done any of it if I'd had to look it up in the
library," he said.
Still, the Net has its drawbacks. "The bad information gets around as
fast as the good," Stallcup said. "Everything you look at ain't necessarily
true."
The pros couldn't agree more. Many bemoan the messes created by
sloppy family trees and bad research posted and reposted on the Web. But
some figure that the only antidote to all the bad information floating out
there is good information, and lots of it.
"As important sources become easier to find and easier to access, we
see better work by more people," said Wylie. "That is the payoff for
opening the (Mormon) databases to the Internet."
John Ballard, Decatur Co IN genweb co-ordinator
http://www.rootsweb.com/~indecatu/indecatu.html