Historical Records on FamilySearch
and Connecting Sources to Family Tree
Background
In 1938 the Genealogical Society of Utah began to microfilm records of genealogical data from
around the world.
Now, in the computer age, FamilySearch has taken on the task of digitizing the world's records
and making them available online.
Nephi Anderson, who was the librarian of the Genealogical Society of Utah and editor of the
Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine from 1910–1923 said in 1911,
“I see the records of the dead and their histories gathered from every
nation under heaven to one great central library in Zion—the largest and
best equipped for its particular work in the world.
And so throughout the years, reaching into the Millennium of peace, this
work of salvation will go on, until every worthy soul that can be found
from early records will have been searched out and officiated for; and
then the unseen world will come to our aid, the broken links will be
joined, the tangled threads will be placed in order, and the purposes of
God in placing salvation within the reach of all will have been
consummated.”
Historical Milestones in Family History
1836 Elijah appears in Kirtland Temple
1840 Baptism for the dead
1842 Joseph Smith introduces the endowment
1845 First endowments in the Nauvoo Temple
1877 First proxy endowments in the St. George Temple
1894 Wilford Woodruff receives revelation on sealing and the Genealogical Society is organized
1938 Microfilming program
1961 Name extraction
1963 Granite Mountain Records Vault
1964 Branch libraries/F H centers
1966 Four-Generation program
1978 Stake Record Extraction
1988 Indexing
1993 TempleReady
1990 FamilySearch
2007 new.familysearch
2012 Family Tree
2013 Photos, stories & attaching sources from the person page on Family Tree
FamilySearch Historical Records
From the home page of FamilySearch click on Search.
From the main page search page you can search all collections
available. You can search by film batch number or filter by
record type, life events or relationship.
Notice from the bottom of the page you can either Browse All
Published Collections or Browse by Location.
Browse All Published Collections goes directly to the Historical
Record Collections page and shows all the collections. You can
then filter by place date, collection type or only collections with
images.
Browse by Location goes directly to a particular area of the world.
From both Browse All Published Collections and Browse by Location you can sort by Numbers of
Record and Last Updated
Attaching Historical Records to From the Person Page on Family Tree
You can search the Historical Records collect directly from the person page of your ancestor
and attach it as a source for your ancestor. See help at
https://familysearch.org/blog/en/ceo-corner-find-historical-records-ancestors-family-tree/
In February, 2014 a class will be offered at the Sunset Heights Family History Center going into
more depth on this subject.