Huge French Website Geneanet now a FamilySearch Partner

The huge French website, Geneanet.org, has now been added as a free, partner website with FamilySearch.org for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here is a screenshot of their Collections page. For those who take advantage of this extensive database, there is the usual option of adding in a family tree.

Quoting from the FamilySearch announcement about the new partnership,

FamilySearch Partners recently partnered with Geneanet to provide free access to the Geneanet services for family history center users and for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Free access includes a premium account consisting of family trees and many record databases containing over 3 billion individuals. No log in is required in family history centers, and the site is accessed through the family history center portal. For personal access, Church members can go to FamilySearch Partner Access to set up a free account. An email invitation will also come to Church members in the coming weeks. 

Geneanet is a French website and has tremendous value to those with French ancestry. If you have early French ancestors or French ancestors who immigrated to other countries, you may find numerous family trees showing generations of cousins who may be new to you. However, don’t overlook Geneanet’s value for European records and worldwide family trees. The Geneanet record databases often reach far beyond France into other European countries. Recently, two FamilySearch employees were happily surprised to find new information for ancestors in Finland and Holland using these databases. These users are convinced of Geneanet’s value to them as they build their family tree. Most records and all family trees are included with the premium account. Be aware that some records and books shared on Geneanet require payment to the library or society who submitted the records. 

Some of the features of Geneanet include the following:

• Geneanet members share more than 400 million individuals in their online family trees. As a member, you can build your own family tree, contact other members, and find and share ancestors. You can also build a family tree on Geneanet using a GEDCOM file. You can learn more here.
• Geneanet members have access to hundreds of thousands of free digitized archival records and hundreds of mostly free digitized registers.
• Many Geneanet members share their indexes for free. Some genealogy society indexes are available with paying access.
• Geneanet members have access to hundreds of thousands of digitized books (some require paying access), postcards and family pictures, a wiki, a blog, and a genealogy community.
• Geneanet is available in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish.