The Mormon Church is planning to convert almost all its genealogy microfilms to digital images. These images will then be available to genealogists who have computer access, from home and probably even from portable Internet connections in libraries, courthouses or even while riding a commuter train. You can read more about the plan in my article published in this newsletter last September at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2005/09/lds_church_to_p.html.
Writing on the Mormon Church's web site, Brittany Karford of Church Magazines now reports that the project is moving much faster than originally planned.
She writes, "At the rate they were going prior to the FamilySearch Scanning technology, it was estimated that it would take 120 years to convert applicable films to digital. That same projection is now less than 30 years, perhaps sooner with planned expansions of additional scanners. The team that couldn't fathom living to see the end result will now be the team that will someday complete the digitizing process."
You can read more about this interesting story that will affect all future genealogists at http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,40-1-3384-9,00.html.
