Comments on Exciting Times for Mormon Family History

My daughter Amy Thiriot is also a very active genealogist, historian and writer. She also has an excellent blog entitled TheAncestorFiles.blogspot.com and is a guest blogger on the Keepapitchinin.org blog also. She recently posted a very thorough explanation of the new free genealogy websites available to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. the post on the Keepapitchinin.org blog is called, "Exciting Times for Mormon Family History: Free Access to Ancestry, MyHeritage and findmypast."

This post is an excellent introduction to the whole subject of the new free websites. I was not too surprised to see that most of the comments seemed to be from members who were learning about the new free access for the first time from Amy's blog. Even though this subject has been widely discussed in the genealogy community since October of 2013, it is still (and will be) a new topic for many of the members who may be surprised to find an invitation in their email box. I wonder how many of them will not believe the offer and ignore it or delete it without looking at it?

I have been working with the missionaries at the Mesa FamilySearch Library, many of whom got their invitations about two weeks ago. Even as late as yesterday, I was still hearing comments about how they needed to "get around" to signing up. These types of comments reinforce the need to involve more of the members of the Church in genealogy (or family history or whatever you want to call it).

If you haven't received an invitation, you will in the next few weeks or months. It may take as long as September or October before all the members are invited. You also might want to know that MyHeritage.com is in 40 different languages and FamilySearch.org is in 10 different languages.

Please take the time to read Amy's post and pass it on to anyone in your Ward or Stake who might need to know about these programs. Thanks.