Dennis Brimhall on the Community Census Project

"By the world’s standards, this census effort has been an enviable example of “crowdsourcing” (the industry buzzword for the “many hands makes light work” philosophy). For us, it is another in a long line of group collaborative projects that promote our vision of creating and linking the best and most valuable research resources to help people discover who they are by exploring where they come from. We have been working collaboratively with volunteers, record custodians, and the general public for well over 100 years to make genealogy records more available," he said.

"Even if our sights were set on the swift and successful completion of the 1940 census alone, we would have to be grateful and excited. But imagine the possibilities of such a dedicated, trained, and motivated workforce as we shift focus from census records to immigration and naturalization records, and country-specific record sets like those represented by our Italy ancestor project. I hope it is plain to see the potential of our growing volunteer workforce and the impact you all can have on the present and future of family history," Brimhall concluded.

Read more: KCSG Television - UPDATE Family Search Volunteers and 1940 Census Project 

Online Learning Tools

Important Consultant and Leader Online Learning Tools

June 29, 2012 By dgreen 

There are several new online resources we’re pleased to announce. For example, a new Temple Submission Policies course that was approved by the First Presidency has now been released.

To access the course,

1. Visit familysearch.org/serve
2. Under the “Core Training” section, click Policies for Submitting Names for Temple Work

A second online publication that will be helpful to many of you is the Area Family History Adviser Toolkit Training. You will find it here.

Third, there are some new research courses (French, England, Brazil, etc.) in the Learning Center. Many consultants are still unaware of this resource. These can be found here along with nearly 500 other courses on how to use FamilySearch tools, indexing, features, and more!

FamilySearch Webinar 2

Today FamilySearch presented a free webinar that covers topics such as (1) using the new Source Box, (2) search techniques for finding your ancestors, and (3) using the International Genealogical Index. You can watch the webinar at this link:
https://ldschurch1.adobeconnect.com/_a784618764/p8322mlykxf/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

FamilySearch Webinar

Last week FamilySearch presented a webinar about their Historical Record Collection, the IGI and the Library Catalog. You can access it at this link: 

http://broadcast.lds.org/eLearning/fhd/Community/en/FamilySearch/Product_Webinars/Robert_Kehrer_-_June_21_2012/Player.html 

LDS Church History Library Catalog

After a year in beta testing, the online LDS Church History Library Catalog is now live. Check out this amazing resource-filled site, which includes thousands of searchable images in the church history collections and thousands of digitized family history books, and early publications and photographs. And that’s just a taste of what you’ll find by clicking in and exploring this fantastic open catalog today!


Keep in mind, this is NOT the Family History Library Catalog. It's the CHURCH HISTORY LIBRARY catalog, but does contain many collections that are useful in our genealogy research.

FamilySearch Search Tips: New Video

FamilySearch has prepared a new, very short video that offers excellent tips on how to do a productive search that will bring better results. You can watch it here:  http://bcove.me/z1xrksma

FamilySearch Statistics Today

Paul Nauta, Manager of Public Affairs at FamilySearch.org shares these current statistics with us via Randy Seaver's "Geneamusings" blog:

1. Number of searchable names from original source records in FamilySearch.org’s Historical Records Collections: Over 2.80 billion
2. Number of searchable names from user contributed records in FamilySearch’s Trees collections online: Over 500 million.
3. There are 1,164 historic record collections at FamilySearch.org. [as of 2 June 2012]
4. Number of browsable digital images of historic documents at FamilySearch.org: 560 million.
5. Number of hits on FamilySearch.org: Over 10 million hits per day.
6. FamilySearch Indexing is the largest community-based transcription initiative in the world.

• Over 200,000 active (index at least one project/year) volunteer indexers.
• Indexing 500,000+ arbitrated names per day.
• Over 850 million names indexed since the application was launched in 2005.
• Publishing over 200 million indexed names per year now (double entered, arbitrated).
• Over 130 current projects. New projects added weekly. See the current lists of projects at Indexing.FamilySearch.org.
• Search completed indexes and un-indexed images at FamilySearch.org.
• Indexing program is available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish,Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish with more language interfaces and international projects coming.
• Greatest need is for native language indexers for international projects and volunteer indexing arbitrators.
• Many partners—historical societies, state, national, and religious archives—use it to improve access to or accuracy of their indexes.

7. 2.4 million rolls of microfilm (Search the catalog online at FamilySearch.org for more details)
8. FamilySearch is producing over 160 million new digital images a year from original source documents.

1. 100 million digital images a year created through microfilm conversion.
2. 60 million new digital images produced a year from new field captures.

9. 15 high-speed scanners are dedicated to converting existing films. Time to complete the digitization of the film collection is projected at 6 years.
10. 185 camera teams currently filming records in 45 countries (new field captures). Most are digital cameras.
11. Search digital images and indexes at FamilySearch.org. Millions added weekly.
12. 4,600 Family History Centers in 126 countries
13. Scanning digital books in cooperation with select public libraries. Search over 50,000 historic books at books.familysearch.org.     

The 1940 US Census, respective to FamilySearch activities, is:

• 1 of 1,173 historic recollections online
• 1% of total new digital image content we'll put online this year (1940 has 3.8 million images; we'll publish around 400 million images this year)
• From an indexing perspective, it is getting a lot of focus from our indexing resources. It is 130 million names indexed when done. FamilySearch volunteers will index over 300 million names (double key; arbitrated). So it represents almost half of the indexing production for the year (unless we can keep all of those new volunteers engaged in the other 100 projects in the queue currently!)

If you read between the lines of the last two bullets, you'll see that our active volunteers are indexing about 2 to 3% of the total digital content we're putting online each year. And we'll be significantly increasing the number of cameras in the field each year—which means more and more digital images published online yearly. There's a huge need for additional online volunteers to try to keep pace with the growing number of collections and digital images we're publishing. Digital images being published are far outpacing the actual indexing output.

Canon City Area Well Represented at Family History Expo

Judy Buchholz and Lureen Orchard

I was really pleased at the number of people from the Canon City and Florence area who attended the Family History Expo in Colorado Springs June 1-2. I wish I had taken a group picture, but I was too busy attending the wide variety of classes that were offered. I took notes in each class that I attended. If any of our Consultants would like a copy of my notes and have not yet received them, just email me at becky.jamison5@gmail.com.
I've written about my experience at the Expo and have posted some pictures on my genealogy blog "Grace and Glory."  

Ken and Lureen Orchard, Family History Center Directors with Larry Jamison