The following announcement was written by Ancestry.ca: (Toronto, ON – February 18, 2009) Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading online family history website, today launched the Canadian arm of the World Archives Project, which will give individuals the opportunity to help preserve historical Canadian records from the comfort of their own homes. New software designed and available for free download on all Ancestry websites enables participants to take images of original records and create indexes containing key information such as name, age, date, gender and location. Ancestry websites will host those indexes, which will be free to access. The first Canadian collection that will be available for World Archives Project participants is Ontario, Canada Marriage Registers by Clergy 1896 – 1948. These important records include approximately 24,000 names captured in marriage registrations compiled by members of the clergy under the Registration Act of 1896. The World Archives Project is launching through Ancestry websites in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, France and Italy to their six million site users and anyone with a general interest in preserving historical records. In the past decade, the Internet has resulted in an explosion of interest in family history, which has in turn highlighted the poor state of many historical records around the world, many of which are deteriorating faster than they can be saved. The World Archives Project aims both to raise awareness of this fact and also to inspire people to help preserve these precious records. Preserving historical records is both costly and time consuming. In recent years, governments, libraries, archives, the family history community and websites have worked hard to preserve historical records: Ancestry.ca aims to accelerate the rate at which Canadian records are being preserved by providing the community with the tools it needs to assist with this significant task. Anyone can participate, and in the process get a ‘sneak preview’ of collections not yet publicly available. Indexes transcribed through the World Archives Project will be free on Ancestry.ca and participants can spend as much or as little time as they want assisting. Karen Patterson, Marketing Director, Ancestry.ca comments: “Historical record preservation and access go hand-in-hand so it is important that institutions, businesses and individuals all play an active role to ensure that as many Canadian records are preserved for future generations as possible. “Due to their age and condition, many Canadian records are in urgent need of preservation and so we are encouraging people to log on, download the free software and start to do their bit to preserve our country’s history.” Please on this link to access the download page and for instructions on how to use the indexing tool http://community.ancestry.com/wap/download.aspx __________________________________________________________________ Connect with friends from any web browser - no download required. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger for the Web BETA at http://ca.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php