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You’ve probably used the record search on FamilySearch
Beta, the site where Familysearch is putting digitized records and volunteer-created
indexes to those records. At the FamilySearch
blogger’s day yesterday, I got a look inside this process.

In 1998, FamilySearch started digitizing the 2.4 million rolls of microfilm and 1
million microfiche in its Granite Mountain vault (where film and fiche masters are
preserved). More than a third of those records have been digitized.

Of the records in the vault, 1.1 percent have been published as online images at the
FamilySearch beta site. Beta site indexes cover 2.6 percent of the records in the
vault. 

Why the gap between the number of records FamilySearch has and the number published
online? Copyright.

FamilySearch doesn’t own the vast majority of all those records, but has negotiated
agreements with each record-holding repository to microfilm and provide access to
the records through the Family History Library. Once technology opened up the possibility
of online access, FamilySearch began renegotiating with all those repositories for
digital rights.

The initiative to index the digitized records began in 2006. So far, more than 375,000
volunteers have indexed 300 million names.

Depending on the agreement FamilySearch can negotiate, you may get free online access
to both the record images and indexes, to just the indexes with links to the original
repository to see the record (sometimes for a fee), or to just the images. If you
need the records that fall into one of the latter groups, see if you can get broader
access by using the computers at a Family
History Center.

Besides the vault, other sources of records include genealogical societies and archives
who can provide both access to the records and volunteers to index them, as well as
agreements with commercial entities such as Footnote.com and FindMyPast.co.uk.

The indexing goal for 2010 is 200 million names, with 148 million indexed so far.
(Last year, 139 million names were indexed.) One of the biggest challenges is a need
for more indexers who read non-English languages.

To provide records access as quickly as possibly, FamilySearch often will add record
images to the beta site, even if the index isn’t completed. You can browse those record
images by date and place.

You can learn more about being a volunteer indexer and see what projects are underway
at the FamilySearch Indexing site.

(See
my blogger’s day disclosure in this post.)