Internet Usage in the U.S. and the FamilySearch Family Tree

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who wish to take their ancestors' and relatives' names to the temples can almost exclusively do so only by entering those names in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. If they do not have the computer skills or own the computer equipment necessary to work online, they must rely on either the computers in Family History Centers, publicly available computers or rely on friends who have a computer connected to the internet. A recent Pew Research Center study entitled, "Internet and Broadband Fact Sheet" highlights some of the challenges of having just one, online access for temple ordinance submission.

According to the Pew Research Center fact sheet, roughly 90% of the U.S. population now use the internet. Of course, genealogists are included in these statistics. Following RootsTech 2015, The Ancestry Insider's blog published a breakdown of the demographics of those attending the Conference. The post is entitled, "RootsTech Attendee Demographics" and it has the following statistics:

RootsTech (hosted by FamilySearch) recently released some interesting demographics about 2015 RootsTech conference and Innovator Summit attendees.

	RootsTech Attendees	Innovator Summit Attendees
States	49	39
Countries	39	11
Family history beginner	37%	21%
Family history intermediate	46%	46%
Family history advanced, expert, or professional	17%	33%
Technology beginner	19%	7%
Technology intermediate	59%	28%
Technology advanced, expert, or developer	22%	65%
Female	66%	34%
Male	34%	66%
Age
18-35	10%	23%
36-45	15%	26%
46-55	18%	22%
56-65	28%	21%
Over 65	29%	8%

These figures correspond directly with my own observations and the historical demographics of those who read my blog posts. When I review the information provided in the Pew Research Center Fact Sheet, there are some interesting conclusions. Age, income, and education are the biggest factors affecting the number of internet users in any other category. Not surprisingly, the lowest adopters of internet use are those over 65 years old. While virtually all of the 18 to 29 year olds in the country are using the internet at 97%, usage by those over 65 is at 64%.

Current efforts to involve the youth in genealogy need to take into account another interesting statistic from the Pew Fact Sheet: 20% of the youngest group of internet users have access only thorugh a smartphone.

So here are some of the issues. First, efforts to involve the youth in genealogy have been very ineffective so far. The number of youth who are activiely submitting names to the temples is still disturbingly small and is further illustrated by the small percentage of youth attending RootsTech as shown above. In fact, current efforts to expand involvement are aimed at an age group that is not even measured by the RootsTech attendance percentages. Second even if efforts to increase involvement were aimed at the "over 65" group of users who already make up the largest percentage of those interested, this group consists of those who evidence the least usuage of the internet.

You would expect that if overall usage of the internet has increased dramatically, you would see a similar increase in the usage of the FamilySearch.org website. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. As I have shown by writing about the results of searches on Google Trends, searches for genealogy realated topics is showing an overall decline. See "Updated Thoughts on Genealogy Blogging and Pi Day." But more importantly, the only way to submit names is through a website that does not work well on many mobile devices, especially those without keyboards.

My own personal observation is that the teenage youth spend much more time on their smartphones and tablets than they do on desktop computers. If they do spend time on a desktop computer or a laptop, they are usually working on school homework or other similar mandatory tasks. So there is a major connection among the youth of desk top computer usage with compulsory activities. Getting them to sit down and use a computer for any serious purpose, other than game playing, is very difficult.

Maybe FamilySearch should seriously look at targeting the 18 to 29 year old age group rather than spending so much effort aimed at teenagers? Additionally, maybe they should also consider a larger emphasis for those actually interested in genealogy; those over the age of 55?