Viewing Digital Record Images on FamilySearch.org -- Part Three

To summarize so far, FamilySearch.org has millions upon millions of records and a huge collection of books and other genealogically significant items. The acquisition of those records began clear back in 1894. Beginning in 1938, the Genealogical Society of Utah, the predecessor organization to FamilySearch, began microfilming records from around the world. Before microfilming was discontinued and replaced by digitization, the effort had resulted in the accumulation of approximately 2.4 million rolls of microfilm. In the more recent past, FamilySearch began the process of digitizing those millions of microfilmed records. In addition, FamilySearch continued to acquire more records from around the world. All of those records as they are digitized, when they have permission to do so, are uploaded to the FamilySearch.org website. The pace of this digitization effort is increasing.

In viewing the FamilySearch.org website, the digitized records can be accessed in two different locations: the Historical Record Collections and the Catalog. Because the pace of digitization has outstripped FamilySearch's ability to process the records for the Historical Record Collections, the records are being added to the website and the availability of the records is recorded in the Catalog by a series of icons next to the previously available microfilm listings. Here is an example from the Catalog:

The icons at the end of the microfilm title indicate that the films are digitized and the little magnifying glass signifies that there is an index listing like this:

In both cases, the little camera icons indicate that there are images also available, such as these:

If you want to see if digitized images are available for a particular area of the world, you need to search in the Catalog. All of the images in the Historical Record Collections are also linked to the Catalog.

To read the previous posts in this series see:

http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2016/08/viewing-digital-record-images-on_5.html
http://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blogspot.com/2016/08/viewing-digital-record-images-on.html