News of the Family History Library 35 North West Temple Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84150 Vol. 1, No. 3 November/December 1989 News of the Family History Library is published six times yearly by the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ISSN applied for. Series FHL, no. 2, issue 3. General information about the hours and services of the Family History Library is available at 801-240-2331. Comments are welcome. Please address them to Editor, News of the Family History Library, 35 North West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150. From the Director The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently announced plans for a major new family history center in Salt Lake City within walking distance of the Family History Library. The new center will be located on three floors in the historic Hotel Utah after that building undergoes an extensive renovation. The center should be open sometime in 1992. The new center will complement the services of the Family History Library. Its primary purpose will be to help beginners easily find information already compiled on their family lines. Plans currently call for over 100 computer workstations in the center. Visitors will be able to search family-linked data bases and a variety of other automated genealogical resources. In addition to the computer resources, the new center will have more than 80,000 published family histories. This family history center will help alleviate crowded conditions at the Family History Library and make the specialized services of the library more readily available to those who need to do original research. --David M. Mayfield Preparing for a Library Visit All genealogical researchers are welcome to visit the Family History Library and to use its resources. We want to help you discover your heritage. The number of people who visit us has been steadily increasing. Before the library opened its new building in 1985, about 525,000 people used the library each year. In 1986, this increased to 620,000, and in 1988, to 785,000. Our average attendance in 1989 is between 2,000 and 3,100 per day. This extensive use of the library keeps our staff busy. For example, in just the first seven months of 1989 we offered 400 research classes and reshelved 5l7,000 books. After producing 1,425,000 copies from books and 430,000 copies from microfilms so far this year, we are sometimes amazed our copy machines still work. If you are planning a visit to the library, this issue of News of the Family History Library offers suggestions that can help you make the best use of your time. Many of these suggestions will also help you effectively use any of our 1,300 family history centers throughout the world. Nearly twice as many researchers visit these centers as visit the library in Salt Lake City. 1. Learn all you can about your family. Gather information from home and family sources. Interview and correspond with family members, especially your older relatives. Visit cemeteries, historical societies, and local courthouses. 2. Record your family information. Choose a standard system for recording your family information. Such a system could include the following: A pedigree chart Family group records Copies or extracts of key family documents (it's best to leave the originals at home) A research log on which to list the sources you search Record all the names, dates, and places you discover. List approximate dates, if needed, until you can find the exact dates through further research. In addition to your research log, you may want to convert your information to a computer format by using one of the genealogy software programs currently available for personal computers. We recommend using one that can save files in the GEDCOM format (see the article on p. 3 about Personal Ancestral File). 3. Choose a research goal. Examine your family records and look for information you would like to find or verify. A good research goal identifies a specific name, event, date, and place you want to learn. 4. Obtain some background information. Visit a local library and examine maps and gazetteers to learn as much as you can about the places your ancestors lived. Become familiar with political boundaries, migration routes. Also study histories of the areas where your ancestors lived for clues about the people, places, and events that may have affected their lives and the records about them. 5. Learn about records and record keeping. If you are unfamiliar with the types of records that contain family information, you may want to study a handbook for beginning genealogists. Most public libraries will have a few of these books. Your visit to the Family History Library will be more successful if you have a realistic understanding of the records available at the library. You should know that: Information about your ancestors may be found in a variety of documents that have been kept since about 1500 by many countries. The Family History Library has copies of original documents on over 1.6 million microfilms. The library continues to collect records from all over the world. Nearly one hundred million pages of records are added each year. The library has copies of records from many governments, churches, and organizations. The collection is not limited to records of LDS Church members or their ancestors. Although the library has the largest collection of its type in the world, it does not have records for everyone who has ever lived. The library has a substantial collection of records from North America, South America, the British Isles, Central and Western Europe, and Scandinavia. If we do not have the records you need, experienced reference specialists can suggest ways to obtain information from other archives and libraries. Although the library has many twentieth century records, most of its records date from about 1500 to about 1910. To use these, you will need to bring information that links you to your ancestors who lived before 1910. Original documents are usually written in the language of the country where they were made. Records from Germany, for example, are written in German. Many church records are in Latin. You do not need to know the foreign language to use the records, but it will help if you learn a few key terms and numbers. Because many of the records are handwritten, are in chronological rather than alphabetical order, and are not indexed, allow plenty of time at the library to search these records carefully. 6. Visit a family history center. Before you come to the library in Salt Lake City, we encourage you to visit a family history center. At a center you can use the following research tools: International Genealogical Index(TM) Family History Library Catalog(TM) Family Registry(TM) U.S. census indexes and other resources Research outlines and other publications Family history centers can order copies of most of the records of the Family History Library through a microfilm and microfiche circulation service. 7. Select the records you want to search. Information about your ancestors will be found in records of the places where they lived-- where they were born, went to church, married, raised their children, and died. To make the best use of your time while you are here, bring a "to-do" list of the places, records, and time periods you would like to search. If possible, obtain the specific titles and library call numbers of the records you want to search. You can find these in the Family History Library Catalog. It is updated each year. 8. Request some microfilms in advance. For space reasons, some microfilms are not kept at the library. Only the complete collections for the United States, Canada, the British Isles, Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, and the Netherlands are kept at the library. If you want to use films from other countries, we recommend that you write to the library at least two weeks in advance and request the films you need. Give the dates you will be in the library, your name and telephone number, and the film numbers. We will then have them available for you when you arrive. 9. Request a group orientation. Genealogical societies and organized research groups should contact Jayare Roberts (801-240-2466) several months before visiting. The library hosts more than ten tour groups each month. By coordinating with your group in advance, we can be more prepared to meet your needs. We will provide a group orientation program that helps those who come each year as well as those have never been to the library. The program includes information on new acquisitions and computer files. 10. Plan your visit. The Family History Library is located at 35 North West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150 (telephone: 801-240-2331). This is directly west of Temple Square in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. The library is open the following hours: Monday 7:30 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Tuesday-Friday 7:30 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. Saturday 7:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. The library is closed some holidays. These are usually New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Pioneer Day (24 July, or the closest weekday), Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and two days for Christmas. 11. Contact the library for more information. If you need more information about the Family History Library or any family history center, write to: Correspondence Unit, 35 North West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150. You may want to request: A description of the services of the Family History Library and the family history centers. Addresses of the family history centers in your area. Names and addresses of accredited genealogists you can employ to do research for you. The library will help you with questions that can be answered briefly, but we cannot do research for you. 12. Visit Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City has a mountain desert climate. Outdoor temperatures in the winter are often 20 to 40 degrees fahrenheit. In the summer, you can expect 80 to 100 degrees. Snow is common in the winter. Plan for rain in the spring. Hotels, public transportation, restaurants, and parking areas are located within walking distance. The library has a small snack room with vending machines. Food and drinks are not allowed in other areas of the library. Smoking is not permitted in the building or on the grounds. Personal Ancestral File Update If you are presently using Personal Ancestral File (see issue Vol. 1, No. 1 of News of the Family History Library), you may be aware that you can use it to submit your family information on diskette to Ancestral File, a data base of linked family information presently being developed. More will be announced in future issues of this newsletter. We are presently building the file by accepting submissions on diskette. To submit your information, please use the guidelines below. You may submit as many generations as you want. Send your GEDCOM diskettes to this address: Ancestral File Operations Unit 50 East North Temple Street Salt Lake City, UT 84150 If you have questions, you can phone 801-240-2584. Apple II version of Release 2.0 Use the GEDCOM program on diskette number 7 to convert your information to a GEDCOM file. The Personal Ancestral File user manual has instructions for using the GEDCOM program. CP/M version of Release 2.0 Follow the Apple II instructions above. The GEDCOM program is found on disk 4. MS-DOS version of Release 2.0 Follow the Apple II instructions above. The GEDCOM program is found on disk 3. MS-DOS version of Release 2.1 Release 2.1 allows you to create an Ancestral File submission on diskette. Be careful, however, when using the "Create Ancestral File Submission" option of the Genealogical Information Exchange program. There is a programming problem with this option. After you have created one submission, the following will appear on the screen: Do you want to create another Ancestral File submission? Y/N Always press "N." If you want to create another submission, return to "Create Ancestral File Submission" and use it again. You may also use option three of the same program to create a GEDCOM file. The problem will be fixed in release 2.2 of Personal Ancestral File, which will be available by the end of 1989. Macintosh version of Release 2.1 Use the "Export" option of the Family Records program to create an Ancestral File submission. Follow the guidelines printed on the single sheet titled "Corrections to the Manual," which is packaged with the program's user manual. Other genealogical software Other genealogical software packages available from commercial vendors can produce GEDCOM files. Both Roots III (by Commsoft) or Family Roots (by Quinsept) can create an Ancestral File submission. Other packages have also been developed which read GEDCOM data and produce a variety of reports. We anticipate that many more will eventually produce GEDCOM files that can be accepted by Ancestral File. United States Indexing Projects The volunteer indexing program sponsored by the LDS Church is continuing to extract genealogical data from valuable United States records. The table on page 4 presents an overview of the records that have been (or are being) indexed. To identify the specific civil and church records that have been indexed from the United States and other countries, see the Parish and Vital Records List. This list is on a set of microfiche that accompanies the International Genealogical Index and is available at all family history centers. It provides the microfilm call numbers of the original records at the Family History Library. It also shows which records are currently being indexed (indicated by a **). English Marriage Records The Family History Library has a large collection of English marriage records and indexes. These include: Boyd's Marriage Index, Series I, II, and III (1500 to 1837) Phillimore Parish Registers Series of Marriages (1538 to 1837) Church of England and nonconformist records of marriage licenses, bonds, affidavits (allegations), and banns (1538 to 1900) County marriage indexes (1538 to 1837) Indexes to civil registrations of marriage certificates (July 1837 to December 1980) These records are listed in the locality section of the Family History Library Catalog under the country, county, or parish. For example, under ENGLAND, STAFFORD - CHURCH RECORDS is a description of 458 microfilms from the Church of England's Diocese of Lichfield (1636 to 1880), and 266 microfilms of Bishop's Transcripts of various deaneries (1612 to 1880).