Salt Lake City/Utah: Genealogy with the Mormons

The archives hold church records, registers of birth, home value & ownership registers and military papers from all over the world. Most of the documents are of European origin.

During the day down in the catacombs of long-forgotten times Ken can make use of more than 80 computers, 600 microfilm reading machines, and some 30 microfilm and microfiche copiers provided by the Library. Ken has just scanned a microfilm saying something about relatives who emigrated to the US from the south-west German town of Durlach near Karlsruhe:

Most of what I'm doing is looking for descendants of some of my early ancestors, and identifying distant cousins that spread out to different parts of the United States."

During the past few days of research, Ken was able to find out that one of his ancestors was apparently valet to the Count of Durlach. Since Ken is not able to speak German, finding out what is in the old German documents is a little difficult for him. The whole research sometimes seems like a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle of which you only know three pieces for certain, he says.

Fortunately, the librarians at the Family History Library are ready to offer their help. One of them is Bärbel Johnson, who came to the US at the age of 18. She is well aware of all the problems that hobby genealogists face.

"All of these records and documents are written in Gothic letters or the old German Suetterlin alphabet. The people here are not used to deciphering these unfamiliar characters. That's why we are spending a lot of time reading the texts to the people or teaching them how to manage on their own", she explains.

The Mormons are very diligent genealogists - much to the annoyance of Parish Archives in Germany. Cooperating with German authorities has not always been a smooth and easy matter.

Due to the strict German privacy laws there are no entries on living people, says Richard Turley, Mormon Church official and head of the Library. Therefore, the majority of the records date from before the 1920s. So anyone who hopes he can use the Library to search for wealthy, far-removed relatives, will be disappointed.

However: Two years ago the Mormon Church agreed on making their records available to the internet community for free. With its more than 400 million names, the FamilySearch web site is one of the largest genealogical research sites on the net.