New Family History Resources Released

At recent genealogy and library association conferences, the Family and Church History Department received prestigious awards. The department also announced new family history tools and improvements.

The Library Association of England presented a reference award to the Church for its Index to the 1881 Census on CD-ROM on 13 September at an international library conference in Cambridge, England. The index was produced in May 1995 after volunteers spent 1.4 million hours on the project.

Just days earlier, the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) bestowed Directors Awards on the Family History Library and the Genealogical Society of Utah. “It was only appropriate that this distinction recognize the two arms of an organization that has achieved so many other firsts, and that has made family history a goal, a possibility, and a reality for genealogists everywhere,” said David Rencher, FGS president.

The awards were presented at the FGS conference, an annual event at which genealogists from throughout the United States gather to learn about the latest in family history research, tools, and services. This year’s conference was in Salt Lake City.

During the conference, Richard E. Turley Jr., managing director of the Family and Church History Department, announced improvements in the FamilySearch• Internet Genealogy Service (www.familysearch.org) and the release of the Vital Records Indexes for western Europe and Mexico (item nos. 50145 and 50163).

The FamilySearch• Internet Genealogy Service now offers a virtual genealogist who walks the user through the research process and points out information available from the Family History Library. The site’s interface has also been updated to make features easier to spot and to allow future translation into other languages.

The Vital Records Indexes for western Europe and Mexico can be purchased for home use and contain millions of birth, christening, and marriage records. These new resources have a powerful search engine that allows users to search not just for individuals, but for parents or particular locations.