FamilySearch was founded in 1894 as the Genealogical Society of Utah and went online in 1999.
If you like researching your family history but don’t want to subscribe to paid services like Ancestry, MyHeritage or Findmypast, you may want to try a free service called FamilySearch
It is a nonprofit that’s operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church. According to its website, the service lets you “Search billions of ancestor profiles, photographs and historical documents at once—absolutely FREE.”
I can’t vouch for the “billions” portion of the claim, but I can confirm that their variety of images of original files is truly impressive.
My exposure to FamilySearch came from my professor cousin who was researching land our great-grandfather owned in Greece. While learning about our ancestors, he came across records that confirmed an 80-year-old family scandal – at least what was considered scandalous in those days – that our parents were always reluctant to discuss. A married Connecticut relative had divorced her husband, moved to Florida, married another man, divorced that man soon after, returned to Connecticut and remarried her original husband.
Through FamilySearch, my cousin found images of original marriage certificates, divorce decrees and a Declaration of Intention for one of the relatives seeking citizenship.
That’s just a smattering of what’s available on FamilySearch. There are census, immigration and African American records, death certificates, ship passenger lists, draft registration cards, church baptisms, land deeds and much more.
Of course, you can also build a family tree, and if another FamilySearch member has researched a deceased person who’s part of your tree, you’ll have access to that information. That’s because your tree is actually part of a huge, worldwide collaborative tree.
FamilySearch has physical locations for in-person help. The closest FamilySearch Center is in Bloomfield.
But luckily, you don’t have to travel that far. Kent Memorial Library is part of FamilySearch’s library affiliate program, which offers most of the same services as the Centers.
You’ll have access to records not available online, about 400 million images, according to the FamilySearch website.
They include digitized microfilm and other digital records, protected by copyright or privacy agreements.
For help at Kent Memorial Library, visit the Reference Desk.