The state of the world’s records in 2018

Five threats motivate FamilySearch’s preservation priorities

It’s no exaggeration to say that FamilySearch has done more to preserve historical genealogical records than any other organisation on the planet. Starting in 1938 when a war which might destroy archives seemed inevitable, FamilySearch has sought permission to film (and now digitally capture) important records.

The first filming in England began in Co Durham in 1945, with one of the early workers riding to the archive on a bicycle. Records have been copied in more than 110 countries. In every case the archive or repository is charged nothing for the preservation, and receives a copy of the result.

David Ouimette, of FamilySearch’s Content Strategy team, recently identified five major risks to historical records (some records are subject to multiple risk factors). Political instability is almost as significant a threat as poor storage, as demonstrated by the catastrophic loss of records in a fire at the Public Record Office in Dublin during the Irish Civil War (see page 28). Tragically, destruction by governmental decision has taken censuses and other records (such as the landing cards of the Windrush migrants) away from us today.

With so many records under threat, FamilySearch has developed a 15-year preservation strategy that aspires to be both wide-ranging and highly targeted. Choosing what to preserve is difficult, but a key element is finding out which ‘ancestral homelands’ records are in high demand by family historians. A good example is Italy, since so many people alive today have Italian ancestors. Once a country is identified as important, records are selected that have broad population coverage and great genealogical value, such as censuses and birth, marriage and death records. However, there is flexibility in the system, and FamilySearch will preserve less critical records if they’re believed to be facing an especially high risk of destruction.