Name Extraction Milestone: 100 Million since 1977

Sometime on June 6, as nearly as administrators in the Family History Department can calculate, the department received the one hundred-millionth name processed through the stake record extraction program.

It came in a batch submitted by the Bountiful Utah Region, says Warren Johnson, manager, Record Extraction Section.

But the one hundred-million milestone isn’t as significant “as the number of people whose lives have been affected on the other side of the veil, and on this side of the veil,” Brother Johnson comments. Work in the name extraction program has not only made possible ordinance work for individuals who are deceased, it has been responsible for reactivation, baptism, and increased spirituality for many of those who take part in it in mortality.

The record extraction program began in the St. George, Utah, stake in 1977. Over several months of that year, the stake extracted 20,000 names. Since then, the program has grown to involve nearly 800 stakes throughout the Church. Last year, some fifteen million names were processed through stake extraction centers. Approximately 15,000 volunteers are involved in the stake record extraction program throughout the Church.

A few years ago, the stake record extraction program was furnishing about 85 percent of the names submitted to temples for ordinance work. But that percentage has dropped as individual members have increased their own activity in family history; individuals now furnish about one-third of the names.

The stake extraction program is separate from the new, rapidly growing family record extraction program in which individuals extract information from paper copies of records in their own homes.