Ambitious project

The Family History Library of Salt Lake City has announced plans to digitize and index information from the 2 million rolls of microfilm they have accumulated, including birth, death, parish and census records. The staff estimates that records from 110 nations will be included in this project. This is an ambitious project, to say the least! The 1880 census index project by the Church, for example, took 12 years to complete, with thousands of volunteers, but has been useful for millions of researchers.

If you have an opportunity to volunteer indexing time on any local project- do it!!!! "Pay it forward", as popular culture says. One example would be the Minnesota Historical Society Minnesota Birth Records project- they hope to have all birth records from 1900 to 1934 online by June 30,2006 and ask for volunteers to work three hour shifts weekly for three to six months. The online index will be generated through an Excel spreadsheet and free parking is provided.