A Religious Obligation. The study of genealogy or family history has become one of the world’s most popular hobbies. But for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it’s a religious obligation.

Latter-day Saints believe that marriages and family units can last for eternity, if those unions are solemnized in a sacred temple by the authority of the holy priesthood. Temples are erected for these specific, family-centered ordinances and are not used for regular Sunday worship services. But according to Church belief, temple blessings are available not only to the living, but to the dead as well.

In holy temples, faithful Church members may stand as living proxies for their own deceased ancestors in these ceremonies, which include baptisms and sealing ordinances which unite families: husbands and wives, parents and children.

In order to identify their ancestors, Latter-day Saints embark on what often become lifetime quests to find traces of their forebears. The Church contributes enormously to this effort by microfilming vast collections of data on the human family, all of which is made available to the public as well as Church members.

In Church doctrine, all temple work for the dead is binding only if it is willingly accepted by each individual who has passed on to the spirit world.

The Family History Library™. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains the world’s largest genealogical facility to assist members and the public as they work to find and authenticate the identities of their ancestors.

Each year, more than three million people come to Salt Lake City from around the world to search records in the Family History Library. The records are available for research at no charge. Key facts about the library include:

• More than 2 billion names are on file.
• More than 2 million rolls of microfilmed genealogical records, 700,000 microfiche, and 280,000 books are available.
• The copyrighted Ancestral File® database contains approximately 35.6 million lineage-linked names.
• The copyrighted International Genealogical Index® (IGI) database contains nearly 300 million individual names.
• Records are available from the United States, Canada, the British Isles, Europe, Scandinavia, Latin America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa.
• The collection increases monthly by approximately 5,000 rolls of film and 1,000 books.
• 265 Church representatives are currently microfilming records in 47 countries

Family History Centers™ Worldwide. A network of 3,100 Family History Centers around the world enables families to gain access to much of the record collection housed in the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Copies of individual microfilms may be ordered at nominal cost for study in the convenience of a location closer to where people live.

Family History Centers are located in 64 countries. Some 100,000 rolls of microfilm are circulated through the Family History Centers each month.

For a complete list of centers, visit the Church’s FamilySearch® Internet Genealogy Service.

Preserving the World’s Records. Records painstakingly made over the centuries by town clerks, parish priests, census takers, court recorders, and family genealogists tell a precious history about the people who have lived on the earth and make up the family of mankind.

But this history can easily be lost. Archives may be damaged by a fire, storm, tornado, or flood. The records may be destroyed in wars or by natural deterioration as pages yellow, inks fade, and papers disintegrate. Once lost, such records are gone forever.

For fifty years, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, working in cooperation with archives around the world, has been methodically collecting records for safekeeping. In 1938, the Church-sponsored Genealogical Society of Utah began sending out photographers to preserve on film the land grant, deed, parish, will, marriage, and cemetery records that help to document the lives of millions of people around the world.

The Society has now collected over 2 million rolls of film (equal to about 8 million 300-page volumes). Each month the collection grows as photographers, now with the latest camera equipment, continue to photograph the world’s records.

The Family History Library’s acquisitions staff studies the records that are available in each country and assesses the possibility of filming them. They also attempt to determine which of the records in the world are fragile or most in danger of being lost. The staff gives highest priority to records that will be of the most use to library visitors.

Records to be found in the library include indexes to birth, marriage, and death registers (both church and government), census returns, court, property, and probate records, emigration and immigration lists, printed genealogies and family histories.

A Mountain of History. Microfilms in the Family History Library and the network of Family History Centers are copies of original films stored for safety in a vault carved deep into the granite rock of the Wasatch Mountains, about 25 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. High above the valley floor, and under 700 feet of solid granite, six naturally cool storage rooms keep the films safe from winter storms and summer heat.

The Granite Mountain Records Vault was designed to store about 26 million 300-page volumes on microfilm. But as new technology develops, it will become possible to store additional information in much less space than before. Only a fraction of the vault has been filled, but more tunnels could be excavated if needed.

All of the films are kept in excellent condition through meticulous care. Security measures are strict, and for this reason the vault is not open to the public. The humidity and temperature are precisely controlled, the films are regularly cleaned and inspected, and new copies are made of films that are showing wear.