Issues 10.15
For decades FamilySearch has focused on traditional records like vital records and censuses. Increasingly there are privacy restrictions that protect those records. They started looking for substitutes and found that newspapers are rich in content, stories, and relationships. FamilySearch had acquired very few newspapers and it would be very difficult to try and visit the large number of publishers. Newspaper publishers aren’t interested in giving content to FamilySearch for free. Many had already licensed their content to other online publishers exclusively. A partnership between FamilySearch and NewsBank, the parent company of Genealogy Bank, served the needs of both organizations.
The two companies decided to begin with obituaries from these newspapers. They also decided to begin with born-digital obituaries rather than historical obits. Digital obits are more modern and bridge the gap between modern vitals and the 1940 census. NewsBank receives 10,000+ of them daily. The goal is to get them to FamilySearch and get them quickly searchable.
They will start indexing historical newspaper obituaries beginning in 2015. By about 1876 obits contained rich content. But they will be a challenge. They are figuring out how to cut out individual obits to make them available to indexers. FamilySearch initially thought they would do a light index: just the decedents name and basic vitals. Ultimately, they decided to index as many relationships as are present. They have found an average of 7.3 named relatives in each obit. The number was much higher in Idaho, where they averaged 27 named relatives. About 100 million names were indexed in 2014, about 90 million of them from GenealogyBank obits That’s an average of 600 thousand names indexed daily from about 80 to 85 thousand names per hour. I love indexing the obituaries, I find them fascinating. See https://indexing.familysearch.org/.
Searching and showing obituaries is just like any other record. Search results look the same. Record details look the same. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can follow a link to an image containing the full text of the obituary.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones 435-682-4900 shannasjones@msn.com