Family History Centers

What do you do once you have exhausted all online resources? There are several resources online, but sometimes you just can’t find what you need online. Ancestry.com (a pay site) has some church records online, but most of the time church records are rare to find online. Same with land records, wills, tax records, and lots of other resources.

Most historical societies will have all the local resources that are available, but if you aren’t local, then you usually have to pay to have someone search the local records.

The LDS church has hundreds of family history centers located throughout the world. Remember in my previous posts, the LDS church has preserved and microfilmed millions of records. These records are slowly being made available online and indexed by volunteers. But, it could take years for all the records to be made available online. So in order to view records that aren’t available online yet, one can go to a family history center and browse microfilms. To find a family history center near you, go to http://www.familysearch.org/locations/ then type in your address.

Once you find a family history center, you will need to visit the center to see what microfilms and books are there. Every center will have different microfilms and books. If you can’t find anything from the resources there, then you may want to check out the family history catalog. This is the catalog for all records that the LDS church has. You should be able to order any microfilms or microfiches to your current center. This does cost and your local center should be able to help with this process. Or you can visit here https://familysearch.org/learningcenter/lesson/online-film-ordering-ordering-microfilms/697 and order them online. I’m not sure how much it currently costs or the process, but it was $7 a microfilm. If you live in Utah and can make it to Salt Lake City, then you can visit the Family History Library. They have all these resources available. No need to order them. To learn more about the family history catalog, you can go here: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Introduction_to_the_Family_History_Library_Catalog

Another advantage of going to a family history center is they have several “pay” sites that you can search for free such as ancestry.com, fold3.com, and even international sites. There are also several volunteers that are available to assist you or answer your genealogy questions. There may also be family history classes.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment.