ABERDEEN-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: LDS Online - Information
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 22:51:36 EST

Dear Friends,
When I'm not searching for long-lost ancestors I keep an eye on the stock
and news tickers. Here's what came across today.

Headline GENEALOGY BOUNTY COMING TO THE WEB
Subhead Mormons set to bring part of vast collection of records online

Sidebar The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints collects genealogical
records of all kinds because the Mormons believe it is important to perform
religious rites on behalf of dead ancestors. It has the world’s largest
collection of such data.
ArticleTHE NEW WEB SITE (www.familysearch.org) won’t officially launch until
mid-April, but it is expected to “go live” for testing any day now. Church
officials originally planned to leave the site open to all during the test
period. But for fear of being swamped, they now may limit access to official
testers with assigned passwords.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints collects genealogical
records of all kinds because the Mormons believe it is important to perform
religious rites on behalf of dead ancestors. It has the world’s largest
collection of such data.
Genealogy is one of the most popular subjects on the Internet. As more
information goes online, it seems to create more genealogists. About 100
million Americans have at least dabbled in it, and 19 million actively
research their family history, according to a 1995 Maritz Marketing Research
study for American Demographics magazine.
Rootsweb (www.rootsweb.org) has more than 200,000 subscribers to 3,000
e-mail lists about genealogy. The number of subscribers is growing rapidly,
according to John V. Wylie, a professional genealogist from Grand Prairie,
Texas. Wylie is a co-founder of GENTECH (www.gentech.org), a non-profit
society to help genealogists use technology.
Mormon Church officials are vague about what Web surfers can expect to
find on their new site, but that hasn’t dampened genealogists’ enthusiasm.
“I think the reaction is probably going to be unanimously, ‘Wow! It’s
about time!”’ said Marthe Arends, editor of the newsletter Pioneers Online
(www.eskimo.com/~mnarends), based in Bellevue, Wash. The newsletter helps
genealogists use the Internet.
With 2.1 million rolls of microfilm, 700,000 microfiches and 280,000
books, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (www.lds.org) is the
ultimate source for many genealogists. The master collection, which includes
the birth, death and marriage records of an estimated 6 billion people, is
kept in a vault carved 900 feet into the side of Granite Mountain.
Completed in 1964, the vault is a testament to the importance the
Church places on tracing one’s ancestors and performing for them vicarious
ordinances of baptism and marriage so that those who lived and died before
Joseph Smith founded the church in 1830 can enjoy the benefits of God’s grace.
The vault contains six separate chambers, each 200 feet long, 30 feet
wide and 15 feet tall. The entire vault, dug into the side of the canyon, lies
800 to 900 feet under the mountaintop. The microfilm records are maintained at
a temperature below 70 degrees Fahrenheit and at a humidity below 35 percent.

by Marge Wylie of the Newhouse News Service quoted on the MSNBC site

Keep your fingers crossed!

Regards,
Gail on Long Island
in NY

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