Today at the Phoenix Haus FamilySearch hosted the German Genealogical Society as they celebrated their 75th Anniversary. I was grateful to be invited to help as a photographer. These are my kind of people!
The guests, who were historians, archivists and genealogists, came from all over Germany. There was a nice program, highlighting the achievements of the last 75 years and honoring former leaders of the organization.
The current president with Torsten Kux, our FamilySearch director.
The Keynote address was given by Thomas Hengst. He explained in fascinating detail the work FamilySearch is doing in Europe, particularly in Germany. We have camera men and women all over the country digitizing archives and historic records. The records are uploaded to FamilySearch and indexed by thousands of volunteers, then made available free to the public.
Here are the points he made:
FamilySearch is a non-profit organization, independent of political or financial institutions.
Founded 130 years ago
Administered through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
1000 Employees worldwide
There are 11,000 digitalization projects going on
The technology center is in Lehi, Utah
Supported by hundreds of thousands of volunteers
In 2023 there were more than 70 million FS users
There are 14 million searchable names
1.6 million personal people in family trees
In 2022 there were 2.6 million views worldwide, 399 million in Europe
There are about 1 million indexed names since 2023
It’s available to everyone
My favorite thing was watching the faces of the guests as they realized what a Big Deal FamilySearch really is, and that it’s free for all to use. It was good to have so many archivists here to learn more about what we do and how we share.
Here’s the group of guests:
After the talks, a delicious lunch buffet was served.
Germany’s complicated history:
Then everyone was divided into 2 groups to take a tour of the building.
Again, these friends were amazed at the scope of what we do here. They saw glimpses of each of the different church departments, then ended in the FamilySearch center on the ground floor.
Torsten showed them the rooms where the films and images are processed with the finest technology. We learned more today about Artificial Intelligence and the roll it will play in the future to help transcribe and index names and records. It was all very exciting.
I enjoyed visiting with different archivists and I learned more about civil registries. I am planning a trip to Leingarten, my ancestral hometown, to find more records of my family there. I was so happy to be here today.
Our Frankfurt Germany Mission 