The indexed information you see for Historical Records on FamilySearch is produced in these ways:
- Computers use AI-Powered Indexing to scan documents for names. Volunteer participants review the indexed documents to check for errors. These volunteer opportunities are located in the Get Involved activities on FamilySearch. Learn more and help out: Get Involved.
- The owners of data in some collections do not allow public access to their records. For limited access records, special groups within the FamilySearch organization complete the indexes.
- Other organizations, such as commercial family history websites, share their indexes with FamilySearch.
- Before the current method of indexing records, volunteers looked at physical microfilms and created indexes. The results of those early efforts are in the legacy record collections. Learn about the legacy collections Legacy Collections