Free for LDS — Family History Websites

During the past year or so FamilySearch.org has been entering into a series of strategic partnerships that add millions of searchable records. For most of that time I have spent a great deal of time helping members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to take advantage of these wonderful, free opportunities to expand their family history research. The first major websites that were free to LDS members were MyHeritage.com, Ancestry.com and Findmypast.com.

Because of its high visibility in the media, Ancestry.com was at first, the only one of the three well known to members. The advantages of both MyHeritage.com and Findmypast.com were and still are mostly unknown and ignored. I am still finding members, even those interested in family history, who are entirely unaware of the free access to all three programs.

Now, we are just finishing #RootsTech 2015 and there are two more programs on the list that are free to members: Family.me and AmericanAncestors.com. The process of redeeming the free memberships is exactly the same as it has been for more than a year. Even during #RootsTech I have been solving the problems of members who have failed to completely register for the free programs.

During the next few days, I will be writing and posting a series of articles about each of the free-to-LDS websites. With each post, I will explain, step-by-step how to sign into FamilySearch.org to take advantage of the free programs. You may want to make this known to your Ward or Stake.