A family history overhaul

Amy Johnson Crowe with the Ohio Genealogical Society said the church approached her group more than two years ago about volunteering, even before the project began. They've been working on an index for Ohio tax records already digitized by the church since December. She dubbed the project "mind-boggling," saying when people hear about it, "they usually want to get involved. It's so incredible from what we thought was possible only a couple of years ago. ... There is a lot of excitement about this."

As online access grows exponentially, information about early Latter-day Saints — and details of their lives that may otherwise have been lost — is readily available, some of it online.

For example, the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database can be found at lds.org under the "church history" tab, and provides names, dates and even journal entries about Latter-day Saints who came by wagon team or handcart to the Salt Lake Valley, as well as a complete list of sources — some of them full-text.

While the church's Family History Library is known worldwide, the less-frequently-used Church History Library, now housed inside the east wing on the main floor of the Church Office Building, offers information not available elsewhere.

Holdings in the Church History Library have grown so large that a 250,000-square-foot building is now under construction east of the Conference Center to house them all, along with administrative offices.

Brent Thompson, director of records preservation, said most of the site excavation for the structure is complete, and concrete was poured earlier this week for the initial part of the foundation. Workers have also tunneled under North Temple to provide eventual access to the Church Office Building. Construction is on target to be completed next year, but Thompson said it likely won't be ready for public use until 2008.

Anderson said the combined initiative to expand public access to ancestral information is "huge. Together they represent probably the most significant changes in family history work ever undertaken."

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