Online and offline – vary your research
Thank you so much for Sharon Hintze’s great article on The World of Family-Search in the December 2014 issue.
I have used the LDS Family History Centres for more years than I can remember, and have volunteered at my local one in Parramatta (suburban Sydney) for about 17 years. This centre has a good permanent collection of films and fiches for British India so attracts visitors from across the Sydney metro region.
It is sad that the changing nature of genealogy research means that patronage of FamilySearch centres has dropped off, with so many people now thinking they can do it all from the comfort of their own homes. However, there are still innumerable records not available online, which the LDS centres offer access to, as well as the expertise of experienced volunteers.
I also volunteer at the Society of Australian Genealogists’ library and am amazed at how many new members may have paid for subscriptions to one of the commercial sites, yet have never accessed the wealth of resources that are found on the FamilySearch website.
Finally, as a fairly recent convert to FamilySearch Indexing – I can recommend engaging with this online volunteer effort to make more records more widely available. There are indexing projects available from around the world, not much for the UK at the moment, but the colonies are
well represented – South Africa, Canada, the West Indies, as well as the United States and European countries. There is even a mutual help group for indexers to share their problems. Sylvia Murphy, New South Wales, Australia
Editor replies: I’m glad that you enjoyed the feature, Sylvia. We like to make people aware of free resources as much as possible and they don’t come much bigger than FamilySearch. Have any other readers got involved in indexing projects recently?