FamilySearch: 16 billion records, just waiting to be found

Whether or not you're already a regular user of FamilySearch, you may not realize the incredible volume of genealogical records they have to offer.

FamilySearch holds 27 million indexed records from 49 different countries. However, the number of indexed records available is only a small percentage (less than 0.17%) of what the organization holds overall. In total, they own and share a staggeringly large collection of 16 billion genealogical records. This includes records that are digitized but not yet indexed, and records that exist only in physical form at one of their many research centers.

This means that when you search FamilySearch directly, you are only accessing 0.17% of their entire collection. But fear not! We are going to show you how to tap into that landmine of information not yet indexed.

If you are searching FamilySearch from here, you are only accessing a fraction of their total collection. Records that are available digitally but have not yet been indexed will not appear.

You can access digitized, not-yet-indexed content from FamilySearch by searching their “Catalog” underneath the “Search” menu. You can search for content via the fields “Place,” “Surname,” “Keyword,” “Title,” “Subject,” “Author,” or any combination thereof. 

If you are searching by “Place,” note that the word “county” should not be included when looking for a specific county for a U.S. state. For example, if you were interested in record sets for Morgan, Alabama, you would search for “United States, Alabama, Morgan.” If you begin typing “Morgan,” this option will be suggested to you.

Let’s say we want to find a will for Elisha Bell who passed away in Morgan County, Alabama in 1839. 

Access the Catalog via the Search menu. Type “Morgan” into the field “Place” (which should appear by default), and select the suggestion “United States, Alabama, Morgan.” Click on “Keyword” and enter the word “probate.” To make sure only records that are accessible online in your home are returned, select option “Online” under “Availability.”

Don't include the word "county" when searching a county location.

Selecting “Any” under “Availability” returns all records, some of which might be physical books or documents. “FamilySearch center” will return records that you can only view at FamilySearch Centers, though with 5,400 locations worldwide, there is probably one near you.

A list of records will appear underneath various category headings when you click on the left-side triangle to expand. If we choose a record set, it will take us to an overview page that provides citation information about the records and a list of films to browse.

In the example above, clicking on any of the camera images will open the image set to peruse. By default, these image sets will open up to the first page selected in a grid view. Clicking on any individual image will open that specific page from where you can navigate back or forth. 

You will find these title cards at the beginning of image sets and sometimes in between, marking what specific content is included in the following pages.

Some of the image sets may be combinations of multiple volumes of books, so pay attention to place markers as seen above to understand exactly what you are (and are not) looking at. 

If we browse the images, we will eventually find the set of images related to Elisha Bell. There are indeed many Elisha Bells in this collection, so we have to do quite a bit of browsing to accurately determine where the correct Elisha Bell’s set of documents begin and end to avoid confusing him with someone else of the same name.

Just 1500 pages to click through!

As soon as you have determined where the record set begins and where it ends, do yourself the favor of creating a source citation that explicitly names the record collection name, the image set, and the range of image numbers relevant to your individual. It is also helpful to include a link directly back to the collection followed by the date you accessed as seen below.

“Morgan County, Alabama Probate Court estate files, ca. 1820–1915,” “Loose estate files, ca. 1820-1915 no. 156-171 Bean, Nina - Bell, Elisha,” Elisha Bell, died 1838, database online [images 1485–1500]; FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C95W-SNNN?i=1484&cat=1011958 : 4 Jan 2023).

There’s much more that can be said about how to effectively search through unindexed items, but that’s all we have time for today. Happy searching!

Sources

Monthly Record Update for November 2023, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/en/newsroom/monthly-record-update-november-2023 : 4 January 2023).