Everton's had the best summation of how to use the beta FamilySearch that I have seen. EVERTON'S FAMILY HISTORY NEWSLINE Monday, 10 May 1999 Planning Ahead for a Trip to a Family History Center It's common knowledge that the Family History Library in Salt Lake City is the world's largest genealogical library. And it is becoming well-known that the Family History Library has over 3,000 branches worldwide, known as Family History Centers. Each of these Centers can request a loan of a microfilm or microfiche from the vast collection of the main library in Salt Lake City, and each of them has its own copy of the Family History Library catalog. Now those of us with a Net connection can check out a beta copy of the Family History Library catalog online at the LDS Church's FamilySearch website. To locate the catalog, click on the "Browse Categories" link on the front page, then on the "Libraries" link on the next page, and finally on the "Family History Library Catalog" link on the next page. The initial selection page shows just two searches, but if you click on the "All Searches" button you get another page with all five of the searches: Author, Film/Fiche Number, Place, Surname, and Call Number. "Author" allows you to type in the personal name of the author of the work, or the corporate name of the company that produced the book. A bit of a wait, and then you get a list of books by that author in the Library's collection. Click on the title-link and you get a more complete display on the book. Strangely enough, film or fiche numbers are not generally on this expanded display, but must be requested by clicking on a "View Film Notes" button. While the extra step makes sense for a very large (multi-roll) film collection, in many cases it would be easier just to list the film number on the "title" page. Of course, this is a beta version of the FamilySearch site, so this situation may change in the future. The "Surname" search is similar, with the search routine looking for all books and films associated with a specific surname. This can return titles that don't even mention the surname directly, but which feature a surname prominently in the book itself. One word of warning: This is a good search tool for a relatively uncommon surname, but for such common names as Smith and Jones, the number of results can be overwhelming. The "Place" search is the Library's locality search engine, allowing you to search for records by country, state or province, county, city, etc. This is an excellent tool for research, but you must keep in mind that records cataloged for a "higher order" locality will probably not be duplicated in "lower order" entries. For example, land records for "Yuba County, California" will probably not appear in listings for "Marysville, Yuba County, California", even though it is certain that many of the deeds in the Yuba County collection refer to land inside the city limits of the county seat. If you already know the number of a roll of microfilm or a sheet of microfiche, you can use the "Film/Fiche" search to look up a description. In the same vein, you can use the "Call Number" search to look up a title by its Family History Library call number. The catalog search is accompanied by online "help" text, but the process will be familiar to anyone who has used the Library's computer or fiche-based catalog at a Family History Center or the main library in Utah. What to do when you find the records you're looking for? Go back the the FamilySearch page for Libraries and search the list of Family History Centers in your state or country. Then use those facilities to borrow a copy of the microfilm from the main library and track your ancestors through the pages of the original records. It's still work, but being able to search the catalog online can save you hours of commute time to the local Center. And that, as the saying goes, is a beautiful thing. Resources: The FamilySearch Website (BETA VERSION) http://www.familysearch.org Copyright 1999, Everton Publishers All rights reserved - ------------------------------------------------------------------ FAMILY HISTORY NEWSLINE is a free daily genealogy news service provided by Everton Publishers P.O. Box 368 Logan, UT 84323 Toll-free: 1-800-443-6325 http://www.everton.com subscribe: <[email protected]> message: subscribe history unsubscribe: <[email protected]> message: unsubscribe history Recent articles are available online at http://www.everton.com/FHN/