FamilySearch Issues RFI for the Records Access Genesis Project

FamilySearch is a nonprofit educational institution entirely funded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dedicated to promoting the preservation and sharing of genealogical information throughout the world. For the first time ever, FamilySearch recently offered to provide free services to archives and other records custodians who wish to digitize, index, publish, and preserve their collections. (See my earlier article about this topic at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/05/familysearch_to.html.)

Today, FamilySearch issued an RFI (Request For Information) to commecial and non-profit organizations that might be interested in joining forces to place genealogy-related information online. The RFI lists many records of interest to the folks at FamilySearch and also solicits suggestions from interested Records Custodians and potential Service Providers.

NOTE: A "Service Provider" is a company that publishes information online. Examples of present-day service providers would include Footnote.com, Ancestry.com, the New England Historic Genealogical Society (a non-profit service provider), FindMyPast.com and many others. FamilySearch is seeking agreements with service providers in the United States as well as in many other countries.

The RFI proposes to provide images of original records to genealogists around the world. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection.

The RFI states that FamilySearch will make these images of original records available at no cost to service providers although the publishing of the online information must conform to a set of guidelines. For instance, all records published under this project must be made available at no charge to patrons at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and to patrons at local FamilySearch Family History Centers around the world. The information also must be available to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at no charge. In effect, this is the "payment" for obtaining easy access to the information. The information also must be published in a manner that allows for the index to be available on www.FamilySearch.org.

In addition, the service providers are free to charge reasonable fees to anyone else who wishes to access the same information. The assumption is that genealogists, historians, and others will want to access this information from their homes or offices and will be willing to pay fees. It is expected that most service providers will also sell institutional subscriptions to libraries, universities and others. These fees will be used to cover the expenses of the service providers and to hopefully generate a profit.

Under this arrangement, users will always have a choice: obtain free access to the information by traveling to a local Family History Center or to obtain access to exactly the same information from the convenience of their own homes for a modest fee.

Another part of this agreement is the coalescing of meta data. "Coalescing" is (my) fancy word that means "you can always start your search from one place: www.FamilySearch.org." That site contains all the meta data. Once you find what you want on www.FamilySearch.org, you can click on a link to go directly to the service provider's web site to view the original document. I would expect that most service providers will also publish indexes to the content available on their own sites.

I also expect most service providers will publish even more records than those they obtain from FamilySearch. This is a non-exclusive arrangement: each service provider is free to obtain additional records from other sources.

The Request For Information (RFI) is being sent to many service providers around the world and is also soon to be published on FamilySearch's web site (exact URL to be announced as soon as it is posted online). Contact information is included within the RFI.

The following is an EXCERPT from the RFI. For details, please contact FamilySearch directly:

You are invited to submit a proposal for the FamilySearch Records Access Genesis project in accordance with the requirements set forth in the attached request for information (RFI), which is also available on-line in the Projects and Activities section at gensocietyofutah.org.

NOTE by Dick Eastman: I am quoting from an advance copy of the RFI. As of the date this article is being written, the RFI is not yet available at the Projects and Activities section at gensocietyofutah.org. However, I do expect that it will appear there within the next few days.

The Genealogical Society of Utah, doing business as FamilySearch (hereinafter referred to as "FamilySearch"), located in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a Utah nonprofit corporation. FamilySearch maintains the world's largest repository of genealogical resources accessed through FamilySearch.org, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and over 4,500 family history centers in 70 countries. The FamilySearch Records Access program provides personnel and state-of-the-art digital cameras, software, and web-based applications to assist record custodians who wish to digitize, index, publish, or preserve parts of their collections.

For archives and heritage societies, the Records Access program benefits include:

• Digitally capture, preserve, and publish records online
• Increase access to records while maintaining control and ownership
• Increase patronage and business viability
• Over 100 years of archival and publishing experience

For service providers, the Records Access program helps them:

• Benefit from the knowledge and relationships of FamilySearch with the archival community worldwide
• Significantly lower costs associated with acquiring, preserving, or providing access to data
• Increase business viability and website traffic
• Leverage an open platform that develops value-added services around FamilySearch, the world's largest repository of genealogical data

If you intend to respond to the RFI, contact Dave Harding or Ransom Love in writing by fax or, preferably, by e-mail. The original, copies, and an electronic version of your proposal must be received not later than noon, September 14, 2007, or your proposal will otherwise be disqualified.

The service provider(s) whose proposal is the best solution for targeted datasets will be selected on [Date to be provided in the RFI].  All proposal submitters will be notified whether they are accepted, disqualified, rejected, or unsuccessful (see section [X] of the RFI).

Dave Harding and Ransom Love will be the single points of contact for all inquiries and correspondences.

Thank you for your time, effort, and interest in Records Access Genesis project.

[End of Excerpt from the RFI]

The full RFI, with attachments, fills more than 70 pages so I will skip the rest in this newsletter. The full RFI also specifies record sets of current interest to FamilySearch, including U.S. census records; census records from England and Wales; U.S. County Wills; U.S. County Estate Files; U.S. County Deeds; U.S. Church Records; Spain Parish Registers; Southern Poland Catholic Parish Registers; Southern Poland Lutheran Parish Registers; Germany, Bavaria, Brenner Genealogy Collection; Italy Parish Registers; Portugal Church and Civil Registration; Ukraine L'viv Greek Catholic Church Records; Ukraine L'viv Roman Catholic Church Records; Hungary Civil Registration; Germany NARA SS Genealogy Collection; Denmark Civil Registration of Marriages and more. In addition, FamilySearch will consider publishing other records as suggested by service providers. For details, consult the RFI.

All in all, this is exciting news. We are all at the "second dawn" of online genealogy information. The "first dawn" was when such information first became online from a number of commercial and non-profit vendors. These were often transcribed records although a minority included scanned images of the originals.

The "second dawn" is an expansion of the same thing in which we see the amount of available online information becomes multiplied by ten or perhaps one hundred or possibly by thousands of times as much information. In every case, you can sit at home or in a Family History Center and view a scanned image of an original record on your computer screen. That's right: original source records available on your nearest computer!

We live in exciting times for genealogists.

Comments

[CK]

Do you have the URL for purchasing the electronic version of Evidence Explained?

[Louise]

After re-reading the previous article about this project I read all the comments in the blog. They I tried to post a comment myself to that blog. It used up all the comment box and woulding post, hung up. So I am going to put part of the comment here and put the rest in a new comment box. It begins below:
I look forward to this, even if I have to pay a fee to some of the original arcives/depositories to view and print at home. Saves a lot of time, travel, renting hotels etc.

But, don't cut off any current subscriptions etc. as I feel it will be a L-O-N-G time before a great deal is online. Our society has tried to work with the LDS microfilming department for years. Way back in 1975 our chairman wrote to SLC asking for advise on using our microfilm camera as we were working in the old courthouse copying things that they never saw when they were here.

[Louise]

Here is rest of my comment:
After several years of no answers and re-writing to them the chairman gave up. Meantime, the society committee continued with their microfilming in their own manner. Creating over 400 reels before (many years later) LDS woke up and decided that several societies in the U.S. wanted to do the same thing and maybe, just maybe, it might be a smart move to include them. Finally our society heard from them. A year later they finally came. But of course they didn't like how our society did the work (which lacked the input that was requested of LDS) and LDS finally told the society how they should do it. Now, I am NOT knocking LDS, I am proud of what they have done for the genealogists of the world, so much so that I, a non-Morman, volunteered at one of their FHC one day a month for three years, driving over two hours each time, round trip, to do so. I know it was a matter of time and personel shortage, but still.........

So, I don't see this all happening overnight.

Our county has an archives, in a library, and if we were to let LDS digitize all of our goodies we would most definetly (I would think though I can't speak for administration) want some small access fee to the items digitized. Why? Because once the genealogical community can get it all online they won't need to drive here and use the material in the library. So what? you might ask. Well, libraries, at least in Ohio, are funded based on statistics. The number of people who use the library and archives is what determines how much money we get from the state to run the library. If we lose bodies coming here we lose funds. If we lose funds we can't keep staff people to work the library, won't have enough money to heat the library, maintain the library and so on. Sorry, just facts of life.

[Dick Eastman]

---> Because once the genealogical community can get it all online they won't need to drive here and use the material in the library.

May I play "Devil's Advocate?" The Family History Library in Salt Lake City reports that the more material they place online, the more visitors they receive at the library. There is a direct correlation between adding major new collections and the number of people who walk in the front door. Since adding millions of records to the web site, the Family History Library has had to expand in order to accommodate the ever-growing number of visitors. The top floor was converted from offices to open access library areas in order to accommodate the demand.

Surveys made of the visitors seem to indicate that access to records on the Internet apparently whets the appetite, encouraging more and more people to research their ancestry. A percentage of those people will travel to Salt Lake City.

Curt Witcher, Director of the Genealogy Department of the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne (the largest publicly-owned genealogy department in the world) reports similar results. I recently listened to a talk he gave in which he reported that his library is expecting more and more visitors every year as a result of their huge increase in the number of records being placed online.

- Dick Eastman

[Dick Eastman]

---> Do you have the URL for purchasing the electronic version of Evidence Explained?

Yes. It is available at http://www.footnote.com

[Lindsay]

To find the RFI go to familysearch.org and look under news. It doesn't appear to be on the gensocietyofutah.org site.

[Ruy Cardoso]

I am curious about the permissions required from the original record holders before FamilySearch can publish the relevant images. A few years ago, I had a series of contracts with the FHL to create databases of certain Portuguese parish records (note that Portugal church records are referred to in the original post above). Those contracts, however, required me to obtain permission from the original record holders (two different archives in Portugal) before the FHL would let me start the projects. Now perhaps the original microfilming agreements made between the FHL and the record holders allow for the publication anticipated by the RFI, but I could imagine that some of the original record holders might feel a bit differently about the whole subject.

[Dick Eastman]

In each case, FamilySearch first checks with the original record holders to verify that permission is granted for the records to be digitized and placed online. If permission is not granted, the record set is not digitized.

- Dick Eastman

[Renee Zamora]

---Well, libraries, at least in Ohio, are funded based on statistics. The number of people who use the library and archives is what determines how much money we get from the state to run the library. If we lose bodies coming here we lose funds.[Louise]

I would think it possible for the state to go off of stats for website hits to help determine funding. You have the images hosted on your own site so you can track that. Just because bodies aren't physically coming into the building doesn't mean that you don't need funding anymore. The RFI isn't planning on digitizing ALL your records. Only the ones the LDS Church has deems "important". Anyone trying to put more flesh on the bones will need to still visit a library or archive. Plus as Dick mentioned you will have more traffic looking at your records onsite and off.

I see this project as giving all of us the ability to find which bones are ours and where we can go to put more flesh on them. Once we get the names and dates for our ancestors many of us want to start writing their histories and stories. Genealogy is one of the most popular hobbies out there and the ease of getting records is going to make it explode.

If a library or archive doesn't digitized they will be totally overwhelmed. As it is now many cannot keep up with the request for records. To use Henry Ford as an example, if you set up an assembly line (digitize) your manufacturing and sales of records will increase.

[LindaS]

Hmmmm. Will the LDS "really" offer the digitized info for free at their Family History Libraries? A year or so ago they changed their fee for microfilm at FHCs from $3.50 per roll to a whopping $6.00 per roll. At the FHC I go to I noticed a huge drop-off in people ordering films (and I cut back as well). When you're researching several decades of land records, for instance, it could cost well over $100 now trying to search a dozen or more reels of film. I don't know the answer to making it less expensive, but I'm disturbed by the trend in some states, for instance, to charge high fees just for single records. So I have my doubts about this project and its ultimate costs to nonprofessional researchers.

[Beverly Godfrey]

This is very exciting news. As a family historian I used go to the Family History Center at least once during the week and every Saturday. However, my job is such that I can't get away during the times the center is opened and they are no longer open on Saturday. Many of the online sites that you can subscribe to have very limited information and it seems to be a waste of time and money to keep going back to them. Many times I have found information and gone back on subsequent visits only to find that I get "NO HITS" when trying to access that same info. I would gladly pay a nominal fee if I knew that the records I was looking for were coming straight from Salt Lake as the closest center is about twenty-five miles away. The most important information I have found on my family I found at a Family History Center. As my time is very limited, I paid to have the records stay at this center permanently so that when I do get the time they will be there. I hope that Historical Societies will take this opportunity to expand their resources as well.

[Beverly Godfrey]

Family research is very specialized and I don't think the number of people doing this research from home is going to impact the the total number of patrons going to the library enough to change the amount of funding the libraries get. also, many people travel to foreign countries to visit small towns and villages trying to find records of their families. sometimes records are lost or just very sketchy. This is very expensive. When ordering records through the Family History Center the records don't have to be ordered all at the same time (usually aren't anyway) and in the end the cost is not bad. To further hold down cost, research with family members and have each one order a different record. Anyone can use them once they are at the center. also, many times there is someone else researching the same area and the records you need are already in-house. this endeavor sounds great to me. As far as not going into the center once the information is online, there is something about looking at the microfilm and finding an ancestor that you can't get by looking at acomputer screen. To me it seems more personal, more awe-inspiring. Maybe it's because you are looking at copies of "Acual" records in the original handwriting as opposed to a typed page. I like the convenience too, but the excitment I felt when I found a match while at the center was missing when looking a the home computer.

[Adams Genealogical Services-Golden]

>As far as not going into the center once the information is online, there is something about looking at the microfilm and finding an ancestor that you can't get by looking at acomputer screen.-Beverly Godfrey
The actual digitized records, in many cases, will also be available via computer since the indexing of records the Family History Library already has permissions for on microfilm will be available in digitized format once indexed and made available. Quite an exciting thing to speed up research results.

[Judy Linnebach]

Hmmmm. Will the LDS "really" offer the digitized info for free at their Family History Libraries? A year or so ago they changed their fee for microfilm at FHCs from $3.50 per roll to a whopping $6.00 per roll. At the FHC I go to I noticed a huge drop-off in people ordering films (and I cut back as well)

In response to this, let's remember that postage went up significantly in the last few years. The fee for renting this film includes postage to and from SLC which is probably close to $3.00 each way. In addition, they have provided the film crews and cameras, traveling to obscure corners of Poland or wherever to film those records. My local FHC also supplies the paper/toner for copies or the CD if I want my copies that way. I am not a Mormon, but I appreciate the research they have provided to me and I for one don't feel that I should be getting all that for free.

[Margaret]

Judy is right, the LDS just raised the cost of ordering films because their costs increased in the last years. That the church is willing to open their Family History Centers to non-members for free is very generous and anyone using their services should remember to say, "Thank you," once in awhile.

My "thank you" is in the form of volunteering twice a month a my local FHC to help other people do research and by doing some indexing of their scanned images. I am not a Mormon, but I do recognize generosity when I see it.

I hope that more people benefiting from their services will volunteer to index the images they are scanning to bring them online sooner. Register at: familysearchindexing.org

[Joanna Aamodt]

Good morning: I hope you can help direct me. I have researched my ancestors through Family Search which has been a blessing. Now I am in the process of continuing the search in Germany.

He was born Mathias Strohmayr (spelling varies of course), but I have found him in the records with this spelling. b. 24 March 1761 in Niederhoking - Bavaria. I want to find his children to link with what I've found in America.

Do you know of a contact or newsletter in which I can post my ancestral name and information in the hopes of finding a long-lost relative?

Thank you so much Joanna

Thank you, Joanna