FamilySearch is undergoing a massive project to digitize the family history book collections at the Family History Library (Salt Lake City, Utah), the Allen County Public Library (Ft. Wayne, Indiana), the Houston Public Library - Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research (Houston, Texas), and the Mid-Continent Public Library - Midwest Genealogy Center (Independence, Missouri) among others. In the month of June 2012 alone, more than 1,500 books were added to Family History Books.
Lists of new digital family history books:
- British Isles Books
- Compiled Family History Books
- International Books
- United States and Canada Books
At present, the bulk of the books being digitized are English-language compiled genealogies that are out of copyright or whose authors have granted permission for the books to be placed online. Other notable additions in June 2012 include Lineage Books of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Volumes 1-166), Volumes 1-11 of the periodical Genealogy: A Journal of American Ancestry, a large collection of indexes to Indiana local histories, many Missouri and Texas local histories, and Houston, Texas death certificates (1876, 1889, 1896-1900).
This effort will enable these valuable books to be more easily accessible around the globe for free through the Internet. The highly-accurate OCR system we are using permits each book to be keyword searched for any word in the text. This post will be the first of several updates to help you keep up-to-date with the new books being added to Family History Books.
Tip: To make direct links to specific digital family history books on your own personal website or in FamilySearch Family Tree, use the Permanent Link that appears when you click Copy Link, NOT the link that displays in the URL (the link in the URL is unstable).
