From: clark@soldev.tti.com (Ralph Clark)
Subject: IGI / LDS Library
Organization: Transaction Technology, Inc.
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 23:42:18 GMT

I want to try my hand here at summarizing the LDS Family History Library
facilities. I note in passing that I'm nominally a Methodist. My experience
is with the very large branch library here in Los Angeles - in other areas
you may have to hunt around for catalogs and CD Roms. I note again in passing
that the L.A. library estimates that more than half of the visitors are not
members of the LDS church. Some of the volunteers there are not members of
the church.

The LDS library in Salt Lake contains over 1,800,000 reels of microfilm. The
church sponsors crews that go around the country and around the world to film
public records, in courthouses, libraries, and government archives. They also
have copies of most microfilms of records made by governments and other
libraries, including census records, genealogical manuscript collections, etc.

Nearly all of these films can be rented from Salt Lake for $2.75 or so, to be
available at your local LDS library for a period of 3 weeks. If your local
library is building its own collection, $6.00 will get a film there on
indefinite loan, presumably for the life of the library. The Los Angeles
branch has over 70,000 films on loan, including a full U.S. Census.

The local branch library will have a catalog on microfiche listing all
1,800,000 films. You can look for a subject of interest, an author, or a
locality by Country - State - County - Town, and see all of the films that
are available. For a locality, these may include vital records (birth, death,
marriage), land records and indexes, probate records and indexes, church
records and registers. If you see something interesting, you can order the
film and it will come to the local branch in a week or two.

The IGI, or International Genealogical Index, is a set of microfiche that is
an index of records that have been entered into a computer by volunteers.
As I understand it, one of the 1,800,000 films will be read by a volunteer,
and the information about christenings or marriages from the public record
will be keyed into a computer. This will be done separately, by two different
volunteers, and the results compared until they agree. Once you see some of
the films of the old, dim, obscurely scripted original records, you will know
how much faith to put on the IGI. It's an index, made by volunteers doing
their best effort. If your grandpa isn't there, make your own search of the
original. If your grandpa isn't there, maybe it's because those 1,800,000
films will take forever to be entered into the IGI. Check the catalog for
your locality, and read the records yourself. Check it often - the catalog
is updated once or twice a year, while the IGI is published about every 
four years.

Someone recently posted that about a third of the local stake libraries now
have the IGI and the catalog and other records on CD-ROM. This is a great
convenience, but not a necessity. The CD-ROM contains the same information
that is on the fiche.

By the way, the members of the LDS Church have also entered records of their
own genealogical research into the IGI. Their family group sheets have been
microfilmed, and may also be ordered. These may be interesting and useful,
but are only a small part of the information available at an LDS Family
History Center near your town.

--- Ralph in Los Angeles

email: clark@soldev.tti.com, or try clark%soldev.tti.com@NDSUVM1.Bitnet 
Ralph Clark (clark@soldev.tti.com) {philabs|psivax|rutgers}!soldev!clark
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