ROOTS & BRANCHES

I started using genealogical assets collected by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more than 30 years ago, just a few years after beginning my genealogy quest in the mid-1980s.

First it was a database called the International Genealogical Index, then accessible on microfiche cards, which led me the church’s microfilms that at the time could be rented for use in a local Family History Center rather than going to the “big house,” the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Eventually I did start travelling once or two a year to the library and also began to make use of the church’s genealogy website and brand FamilySearch.org, which quickly came to overshadow the physical library.

When FamilySearch began sponsoring the RootsTech conference, it took things to a whole new level, and the recently completed first virtual RootsTech claimed more than a million participants from more than 200 countries around the world.

Which is all well and good—I was one of those million and had fun with both an app that showed whether participants were cousins as well as MyHeritage’s debut of a technology that animates ancestral photos—but for me the bigger headlines were announced before RootsTech about what’s happening at the Family History Library.

After years of said overshadowing by FamilySearch’s online presence—including fewer in-person visits—I’m going to say that there’s now a superb plan for reinvention of the library in a much changed technology world.

My take is that culminating in the last year while the library has been closed because of the COVID-19, the folks in charge of the Family History Library have not only physically reconfigured the library to give patrons the best access to all its materials once it reopens, but are finding ways to being the library’s materials and expertise to patrons around the world.

Some of the ways involve starting a book look-up service, offering consultations with its staff of experts, and something that while it’s cosmetic, speaks toward breaking out of that overshadowing: Changing the library’s web URL from one that was difficult to find to an intuitive one— https://www.familysearch.org/family-history-library.

Essentially, the library is looking upon itself as the centerpiece of a global library that includes the Family History Centers and web-based services—and has recrafted what “visitation” of the library means.

In my 20 years in the national genealogy community, I’ve seen a lot of presentations that (to say it politely) were “more sizzle than steak.” This one, however, was filet mignon.

All this bodes well for genealogists both serious and amateur. By reinventing the Family History Library for the next generation, it will be keeping a wide gamut of resources available for everyone involved in family history.