The Family History Library & the Research Process

(Last updated 11 September, 2005)

The Family History Library (FHL)

Family History Centers are, in a sense, branch libraries of the Family History Library. Over 3500 Family History Centers are spread worldwide. You can find your nearest Family History Center at www.FamilySearch.org. Most of the sources available at the Family History Library can be ordered for viewing at Family History Centers. A later lesson will show you how to order a microfilm to your local Family History Center. Another lesson will show how to search for records in your ancestor's area using the Family History Library Catalog at www.FamilySearch.org. 

The Research Process

[from A Guide to Research (Salt Lake City:  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1994)] [Show cyclical image of research process].

1. Identify what you know
   • Gather data from your relatives
   • Organize your information so you can tell what you've found so far.
2. Decide what you want to learn
   • The smaller the goal, the better.
   1. To say "I want to push back the Ritchey line" is too big. Narrow it down. Say "I'd like to find the marriage record of Frantz Ritschy in case his parents are listed."
3. Select records to search
   • Use the computer catalog of Salt Lake's Family History Library. We have the catalog here on CD at this FHC.
4. Obtain and search the record
   • In this class you'll learn how to order microfilms from Salt Lake.
5. Use the information
   • In this class, you'll learn how to analyze the data you glean from the records. Analysis is the most overlooked part of research, and the most powerful.

The First Rule of Genealogy: Work from the known to the unknown. Start with what you know, and work your way back.

1. If your family line only goes back to the late 1800s, but you find in a history book some great Revolutionary War hero who has the same surname, don't waste your time researching the soldier's family to try to link it to yours.
   • Why should you work with your known ancestor rather than the unknown, colonial fellow?
   1. As a general rule, modern records...
   1. are easier to access,
   2. are in better condition,
   3. and contain more information.
   2. In addition, the records of your modern ancestor are those which definitely pertain to your people. Why waste hours researching someone who is probably not your direct ancestor, when instead you could be pushing your own lines back?
   • Some people waste time researching the unlinked hero because they want to associate themselves with him. They think it makes them special. This is prideful.
   1. You are related to heroes, but you're also related to villains. If you take credit for the former, you must take credit for the latter.
   2. A distant relation to Brigham Young, Abraham Lincoln, or King Henry V makes no more impact on who you are than does a relation to Jack the Ripper, Adolph Hitler, or Attila the Hun.
   • When you wisely spend your research time searching out people you know to be your ancestors, you will find in the everyday acts of these "ordinary people" an extraordinary heroism.
   1. A housewife who nurses a neighbor family, knowing that the disease they have is both communicable and deadly.
   2. A pioneer who refuses to abandon his cabin in the wilderness, risking murder or scalping by Indians so someday he can pass on a homestead to his children.
   3. A religious convert who chooses to suffer disownment by her family and shunning by her community in order to follow God.
   4. A free black family that labors as sharecroppers, or a working-class Irish family that toils in the mines, both families fighting daily against despair, knowing that they sink deeper in debt, owing their lives to the landlord or the company store.
   5. A Quaker convert who, in an attempt to follow his new faith, risks ostracism by his neighbors by paying a stiff fine to the state to avoid fighting in the Revolution. Shortly thereafter, he is excommunicated by the Quakers for paying this fine. His religious courage thus leaves him bereft of friends, family, and community.
   6. These are real, meat-and-potatoes, everyday heroes. You don't need Joan of Arc, Robert E. Lee, or a Mayflower ancestor to have a worthy heritage. Start with what you know, and work your way back.  Along the way, you will find heroes.

Description of the Genealogical Society of Utah (the Family History Library's records acquisitions department) from Bradley and Muller's Church History: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works, and Methods (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995):

The Genealogical Society possesses one of the largest collections of filmed manuscripts in the world, and the collection is truly international in scope.  The holdings are especially valuable for local history, since the Society is oriented around vital records organized primarily with the needs of the genealogist in mind (222).

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