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.