Advances in computer-assisted indexing and other digital innovations, new volunteer experiences, the largest family history conference in the world and, of course, more genealogy records are all part of what FamilySearch is planning for patrons in 2024.
FamilySearch, an international family history website sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offered a preview of its plans for the coming year in a news release on Jan. 17.
Here is what Latter-day Saints can expect to see at FamilySearch:
Access to more family history records
FamilySearch will continue to work with record custodians and other organizations worldwide to digitize millions of more historical records, to preserve them and make them more widely available.
FamilySearch will continue to digitize records in more than 75 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Oceania, with significant new additions coming for collections in Peru and Portugal.
Last year, FamilySearch collaborated with Ancestry and the Library and Archives Canada to make the 1931 Canada census available for free research. FamilySearch will add the full 1921 Canada census this year.
FamilySearch will also continue to gather oral genealogies from Africa, as well as other unique record sets, and make them digitally searchable. This search feature will allow patrons to explore the oral genealogies from more than 15 African countries by tribe, village and surname, with access to photos, audio recordings and lineages preserved through interviews.
Computer-assisted indexing
In 2024, FamilySearch plans to improve its computer-assisted indexing algorithms to recognize and index historical genealogical records in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English. This handwriting recognition technology, combined with the contributions of online volunteers, will make millions of document images text-searchable faster and enable more people to discover their family heritage.
Full-text search
On a related note, FamilySearch has been leveraging its AI-powered handwriting recognition technology to also improve its record search experience.
In 2024, FamilySearch hopes to make the search experience more powerful by adding full-text search capability to select record sets.
RootsTech 2024
The largest family history conference in the world is returning again this year.
RootsTech 2024 will be available online globally and in person in Salt Lake City, Feb. 29 to March 2. This year’s theme is “Remember,” and the event will feature more than 700 classes in 27 languages, as well as a new interactive chat feature for online participants. RootsTech has already announced two keynote speakers — Lynne M. Jackson, a descendant of Dred and Harriet Scott, and comedian Henry Cho.
More than 3 million people participated in person or online worldwide in 2023. Organizers anticipate just as many participants or more in 2024.
“RootsTech is a wonderful way to make new family discoveries, learn helpful tips for expanding your family tree, explore innovative new products and services, and be inspired by wonderful keynotes and speakers,” the FamilySearch news release said.
Registration for RootsTech 2024 is available at RootsTech.org.
New volunteer opportunities
In the coming year, new volunteer experiences through FamilySearch’s Get Involved initiatives will allow volunteers to more easily assist with reviewing computer-assisted indexes.
Previous improvements allowed volunteers to quickly review indexed names on their mobile devices and work on record sets of personal relevance or interest. The 2024 Get Involved updates will include options that allow patrons to help review all fields in a record in ways that are easier and more mobile-friendly.
Patrons can also see how their volunteer efforts have contributed to the overall project’s success with the Your Impact feature.
More digital books
FamilySearch will work with contributing organizations to expand the number of digital publications added to its free digital library. These full-text searchable publications include genealogy books, family histories, local histories, maps and yearbooks.
Better sharing capability for family groups
The FamilySearch Family Tree is a highly collaborative tree, where any relatives — including cousins, parents, grandparents and others — can work together to document their ancestry. To protect privacy, the Family Tree limits visibility of information entered for living relatives.
This year, new updates to family groups on FamilySearch will allow users to share information about living relatives within a group so that family members do not have to reenter information about shared living relatives.
FamilySearch will release more details in the future, but photo-sharing and collaboratively recording family memories and details about living family members will be easier with this new update.
Testing new updates
In 2024, FamilySearch plans to offer interested users the opportunity to test select new features as they are developed. More information about these test opportunities will be available through the FamilySearch blog.
Learn more about FamilySearch at FamilySearch.org.
