What do I do with my Book of Remembrance?

"FileStack retouched" by Niklas Bildhauer (who also is User gerolsteiner91. - originally posted to Flickr as folder. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FileStack_retouched.jpg#/media/File:FileStack_retouched.jpg

Last night, I was helping a friend with her genealogy on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree when she stopped and went to retrieve her six-inch thick Book of Remembrance. She immediately began the process of showing me all the work that had been done on her lines. After a few minutes of comparing what was in the Book of Remembrance and what was now online, I realized that there were many things in her Book that were different than what was recorded online or were lacking in the online record.

The most obvious were numerous historical family photographs. None of these had been digitized or shared online in the FamilySearch.org Memories section. As she continued to bring out stacks of paper, I discovered that the family had hired a professional researcher who had provided literally thousands of names with documentation. The stack of paper that appeared was almost a foot high. The final document was a six-inch printout from Personal Ancestral File of just her family's pedigree. My friend had no idea what she had or how much of what was in front of us on paper had already been added online.

One of the issues we had been discussing before she brought out all the paper, was the accuracy of the places recorded in the Family Tree. Many of the place names were incomplete or inaccurate. Her ancestors came from Germany as very recent immigrants so almost all of her ancestors were born in Germany. We had been struggling with the place names trying to figure out the correct information. The huge printed pedigree she produced had more correct versions of all the place names and differed substantially from what was already online.

This experience brings up a fundamental question for some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To what extent has the information in your "Book of Remembrance" been put into the online Family Tree on FamilySearch.org? My friend kept insisting that all the work had been "done" because she had a huge stack of paper even though she had no idea what lines had been worked on and how much of it was incorporated online. It did appear that much of what was on paper was more accurate than what had been recorded online however.

Because of the quantity of paper, it will probably take a considerable period of time and lot of effort to verify that the research information on the paper records was recorded in the online Family Tree. The next step will be to transfer the information from paper to Family Tree carefully adding the sources.

One of the very first tasks I did when I was starting out was to transfer all of the information in my own Book of Remembrance to my online file. I also subsequently digitized all of the photos and put them online also. I suggest that you dig out your "Book of Remembrance" and make sure that all the information, including the photos and documents, have been digitized and shared online on the Family Tree. You might just be surprised to see what is missing online.