The Growth of Family History Resources

The growth of family history resources and their use shows the Lord’s guiding hand in this important work of the Church, and it shows His love for us and our families—on both sides of the veil.

1894: The Genealogical Society of Utah (now FamilySearch) started its library with a collection of 300 books. FamilySearch now has over 503,000 digital books.

1934: The Genealogical Society of Utah had over 6,000 members. Today, there are more than 18.7 million registered FamilySearch.org users.

1964: Genealogical libraries in stake centers began to be established. There are now over 5,200 family history centers in 145 countries.

1999: FamilySearch launches online. Now available in 30 languages, more than 150 million people have visited FamilySearch.org to learn more about their family heritage.

2010: FamilySearch.org’s new Record Search launched with over a billion names and millions of images. There are now 8.4 billion searchable names and 4.4 billion digital images published.

2017: Web-based indexing started, following 11 years of software-based indexing. Since 2017, more than 800,000 indexing volunteers have participated.

2021: More than 1 million family history enthusiasts participated in RootsTech Connect.