Hi, Received this in another mail list this morning.Looks pretty helpful and interesting.I've been going through it myself for the past hour.Many references to family surnames I have seen on various lists.Hope it helps someone.Message is below. Denise The following is an article about online books that I just received. > > The message is incredibly cool! You can go to the Brigham Young University > website http://www.lib.byu.edu/ and do searches of over 5000 books which the > Family History Library has put online.* ... the LDS Family History Library has > announced that it has begun the process of digitizing and making available > on the Internet all of the Family History books in their collection. These are > primarily books in the "929.273Series" that are currently housed on the > first floor of the Family History Library (previously housed on the fourth floor > of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building). At the present time (September 2005), > about 5000 books have been digitized and are available, and they have > announced that they are adding about 100 titles a week to the on-line collection. > Copyright issues are playing a role in determining the order in which they > progress through this task; books out of copyright are being done first. > > As these Family History books are digitized and placed on-line, an entry is > being placed in the Family History Library on-line catalog with a hyperlink > to the digitized image. By going to the FHL On-Line Catalog, you can search > for a specific name, find a book that has been indexed using the name, and view > it on-line, flipping through the pages as separate "pdf" images, much the > same as if you were on the first floor of the Family History Library. = > > Of course, the indexing that is available through the FHL Catalog is only as > good as the human indexers made it; typically they only include the "top" 4 > to 6 names that appear in each book in their indexing efforts. But there is > even better news! > > The digitized images of these Family History books are actually being stored > on the electronic servers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.= > > By going directly to the BYU web site to view the images, there are several > additional possibilities that provide genealogists functionality that they > have never had before. You are now able to do full-text searches on each book, > and on every digitized book in the collection. Now you can locate the small > two-paragraph entry on Grandpa Ebenezer McGarrah that is buried in one of the > Family History books that you would have otherwise never thought to look at > before. This can open up a huge new possibility for extending lines, getting > past brick walls, and uncovering new relatives!= > > > How to Find The Digitized Images? > > Go to the web site of the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU at > http://www.lib.byu.edu/ on their home page, follow the links "Find Other > Materials/Electronic/On Line Collections at BYU". Click on the "Text Collections" tab and select > the "Family History Archive" from the list of collections that are displayed. > > You would then normally want to use the "Search All" feature with the > "Search Full Text" box checked, although the "Advanced Search" will allow very > high-powered searches that will allow certain phrases to be searched for and > other words to be used to exclude potential hits. As you make selections from the > "hits" that are displayed, you will need to use the "Click Here to View > Item" button near the top of the screen to display the actual image of the page. > You can page through the entire document using the index displayed on the > left side of the screen. Each page may be printed after being viewed. > > One interesting sidelight is, when you are at the first web page for the > Family History Archive (the page that lets you begin a search), click on the > "Browse the Collection" button. This will display every Family History book that > has been digitized and is available in the collection. > > You can scroll through this list much the same as if you were walking up and > down the stacks at the library. At the top of the first page of the search > results, it displays the number of hits, which (in this case) is the number of > books in the collection. If you keep track of this number, you can get a > pretty good idea of how fast they are adding titles to the collection as you > revisit the web site from time to time. I think you will want to visit this site > often as the collection grows!" > > > --