The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 1999 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. - LDS Databases Are Now Available Online For years, many of us have predicted that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) would place many of their databases online. In the March 9, 1999 edition of this newsletter (available at: http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/eastmar09-99.htm) I wrote about the rumors and some of the news stories circulating at that time. The Mormon Church remained quiet until this week. Finally, they made an announcement that we have all been waiting years to read: Public Test Begins for New Genealogical Service Salt Lake City, Utah- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has begun a brief public test of a new genealogical service for the Internet. The developmental test is open to anyone with Internet access, and the site can be found at www.familysearch.org. No special password or clearance is required. Present plans are for the test site to be available over the next few weeks. Due to test requirements the site may be unavailable at times or experience periods of slow response. The Church believes that, once the test is completed and the service is formally launched, it will greatly enhance the way people trace their family history. Depending on evaluation of the test, the full service may be launched this spring or summer. At that time, but not until then, detailed explanation will be made of the site and its various elements. The Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an international leader in genealogical research with the world's largest collection of family history records made available to the public through a system of 3,200 Family History Centers located around the world. For media inquiries, contact: Michael Purdy (801) 240-2363 Dan Rascon (801) 240-1977 Dale Bills (801) 240-4377 Paul Nauta (801) 240-6498 The http://www.familysearch.org/ site obviously has been very busy since the announcement. I have used it a number of times and have frequently seen error messages of "Not Available" or "Server Too Busy." Such messages are to be expected in the "developmental test" and anyone who encounters them should not be surprised. Keep in mind that this test is designed as a session for identifying and eliminating software bugs and capacity issues. As such, you should not be surprised to encounter a few unsolved problems in the early weeks. So what is available on the new FamilySearch site? When first entering the site, a very simple "fill in the blanks" page appears, suggesting that you enter at least your ancestor's first and last name and then click Search. On my first attempt I simply entered my own surname without any first name and then clicked on Search. Within seconds the database identified 226 records that matched my search criteria. I could click on any of them to display a more detailed page. To show the type of information available, I did a cut-and-paste of the first record I displayed: FamilySearch(r) International Genealogical Index (tm) British Isles IGI Record Aaron EASMAN Sex: M Event(s): Christened: 6 Jun 1830 Lingfield, Surrey, England Parents: Father: William EASMAN Mother: Source Information: Film Number: 1903555 Page Number: Reference Number: You can see that this particular record is from the International Genealogical Index. I can view all the details by visiting a local Family History Center near me and renting microfilm number 1903555. I can now easily do the basic research at home, go to the Family History Center with a list of films to order, and then return a few weeks later to view the microfilms after they arrive. This certainly is a time saver, especially for those of us who lead busy lives and cannot easily get to the local center to spend time searching the records on CD-ROM. The particular search that I performed on my own surname produced records from the Ancestral File, the Family History Library Catalog, the International Genealogical Index for several countries, the FamilySearch Pedigree Resource File, and from some Web sites. Of course, a "brute force" approach of searching for all entries of a particular surname will not be very effective unless it is a rare name. In most cases, the best method is to refine the search by entering a first name, too. You can do somewhat more sophisticated searches, such as by Keyword or by a Custom Search of any one of the Mormon databases. Since I have an interest in Penobscot County, Maine, I did a Keyword search on "Penobscot." That search produced 37 "hits" with most of them being for books available in the Family History Center's library. Apparently you can not yet filter by multiple words. For instance, I could not specify a search of "all references for the town of Corinth in the County of Penobscot." The Custom Search allows for tailoring a search to a specific database. This is effective for anyone who is already familiar with that database and knows how the information is organized. For instance, you can search the International Genealogical Index for a name, for a spouse's name, for parents' name(s), by region, and even by Batch numbers. A search of the Ancestral File can be tailored by name, spouse's name, or parents' name(s), as well as by file number. I have known for some time that the Mormon Church was planning to place their databases online, but I still received several surprises when I finally used it myself. They have more than just their own databases available. They also have searched the Web to find good databases that other people have created. For instance, I found brief descriptions and links to hundreds of online databases such as: early Waldo County, Maine marriage records, the Dublin, Ireland Directory of 1850, a Carpatho-Rusyn Knowledge Base, a 1790 Virginia Census Map, a listing of the Census Schedules and Microfilm Roll Numbers for Ohio: 1890 Special Schedules, and much more. The FamilySearch Web site says that it contains the following: * Ancestral File(tm) - Over 35 million names organized into families and pedigrees * International Genealogical Index(r) - Over 285 million names extracted from vital records around the world * Family History Library Catalog(tm) - Over 2 million rolls of microfilm and hundreds of thousands of books and maps described and catalogued * Family History Centers(tm) - Locate the nearest Family History Center where you can access microfilm described in the Family History Library Catalog(tm) and SourceGuide(tm) * SourceGuide(tm) - Over 150 research outlines, an extensive glossary of word meanings, and Catalog Helper * Web Sites - Thousands of web sites categorized by our volunteers * Collaboration Lists - Collaboration mailing lists created by registered users of FamilySearch Internet The left side of every menu has a prominent link called HELP. I used it several times and found brief but useful help for each function that I tried. Genealogy novices and experts alike will find the Web site easy to use. The FamilySearch Web site is a major advance for online genealogy research. I suggest that you bookmark this site and visit it often. Even with the present server loading issues, this has to be a valuable online resource for almost everyone. For more information, look at: http://www.familysearch.org/