The FamilySearch Year in Review 2019

Infographics seem to pop up online at the end of every year. This one is from FamilySearch.org. When we look at these numbers we need to remember that FamilySearch is a nonprofit, charitable institution sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and nearly all of these increased numbers come directly or indirectly from volunteers. Granted, FamilySearch has a sizable paid staff, but indexing, book scanning, and image capture are largely volunteer efforts. Here is some more detail about the numbers and the accomplishments all of which came from an email sent to me. But you can also view all of the following information in the FamilySearch Blog entitled, "FamilySearch 2019 Year in Review."

• In 2019, FamilySearch added 123.6 million indexed records and over 850 million new images of historical records.
• In addition to more searchable records and images, FamilySearch provided updates and new features to improve the indexing and record searching experience, including a new similar historical records tool that helps you find additional records that may belong to a person you find in a document. So when you find a family member in a record on FamilySearch.org, FamilySearch can now suggest other records that may include information about the same person.
• FamilySearch introduced an update that allows users to make corrections to names in an index. You can correct names that were indexed incorrectly or that were incorrect on the record itself. Learn more here.
• Using the new Thank a Volunteer feature, you can express appreciation for the thousands of volunteers who make indexed, searchable records possible on FamilySearch.org!

Here is another infographic with some additional information about the users and conferences from the same email. 

And here is some additional information about the same subject.

• This year saw another successful RootsTech in Salt Lake City, which a total of 15,156 genealogy enthusiasts and experts attended.
• For the first year ever, a RootsTech conference took place in London, bringing in 9,727 total attendees. There were more than 81,000 online views of the London and Salt Lake City RootsTech conferences combined.
• Mexico also had its own genealogy conference sponsored by FamilySearch, the Expo Genealogía, which successfully brought discovery experiences to hundreds of attendees.
• Along with the many discoveries that FamilySearch users have made on the site, FamilySearch created an online discovery experience center, which you can check out here.

FamilySearch has not yet run out of infographics. Here is another one.

And here are the detailed facts that go along with this one.

• During 2019, 3.5 million FamilySearch.org users added nearly 47 million people to the FamilySearch Family Tree.
• FamilySearch also introduced several new features to the Family Tree this year. For example, you can now see how you are related to other users of FamilySearch.org. All you have to do is opt-in, and you can see how you and another person (if he or she has also opted-in) are related.
• In a recent update, FamilySearch provided the ability to document all family relationships, including same-sex relationships. Learn more here.

Don't get impatient, there are three more infographics with even more information. Here we go with the next one.

And here is the explanation.

• An incredible 518,563 FamilySearch.org users added to their memories on the website.
• Users uploaded 8,751,822 photos and stories this year, for a total of 40,373,365 photos and stories in the Memories feature.

Next:

• In 2019, we had 318,000 indexing volunteers, who served for a total of 10.9 million volunteer indexing hours.
• One million customer support cases were resolved by staff and volunteers.
• An additional 66 FamilySearch family history centers were opened, making a total of 5,190 centers worldwide. In addition, the Family History Library expanded its hours of operation to include Sunday hours and later hours on Mondays.
• Volunteers and missionaries contributed a total of 15.4 million service hours in 2019.

This is the last one:

In addition to the above, here are some other interesting facts.

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which FamilySearch is a fully-owned nonprofit subsidiary, donated $2 million to the International African American Museum (IAAM) Center for Family History. The donation will help support the creation of the center there.
• At the annual meeting of the American Society of Genealogists, held on November 2 in Salt Lake City, Utah, David Rencher, the chief genealogical officer for FamilySearch and director of the Family History Library, received a certificate of appreciation for extraordinary contributions to the discipline of genealogy
• The FamilySearch Research Wiki, a treasure-trove of genealogical expertise, advice, and insights for family history enthusiasts, published its 90,000th article.