A portion of this article is attributed to an earlier FamilySearch article. In September of 1620, 102 passengers — men, women, and children — and a crew of approximately 30 left England aboard the Mayflower. While nearly half of the passengers who arrived on the shores of Massachusetts died during the first winter, 26 Mayflower families are known… Read More Descendants From the Mayflower
As I walk through forests adorned in the splendor of autumn, I can’t help but marvel at the beauty that God has created. With the shifting of seasons, I find myself in the cycle of transition. This time of year, the warmth of the blanket embraces my soul with desires to read and watch my… Read More Remember and Preserve
Set a Reminder for RootsTech 2026 RootsTech 2026, the largest family history conference of the year, will be here before you know it. In fact, early bird registration opens on September 24, 2025. Set a reminder because you won’t want to miss this opportunity! Registration will open at the same time for both in-person and… Read More Spread the Word, RootsTech Registration 2026 Is Almost Here
By FamilySearch September 2025 Recently, FamilySearch expanded its free online archives with nearly 5 million new records from 12 countries. Exciting additions include 3.6 million civil registrations from Italy, 300,000 cemetery records from Chile, and almost 300,000 Catholic Church records from Portugal. Other countries with significant record additions include the following: To ensure the accuracy of updates,… Read More New Free Historical Records from 12 Countries | September 2025 Update
In a recent article published on the FamilySearch Blog site, an announcement was made that Full-Text Search is now part of its standard search tools. Since its initial release in FamilySearch Labs during RootsTech 2024, the feature has undergone numerous enhancements to improve its power and usability. These improvements are already helping users make exciting… Read More Full-Text Search Leaves FamilySearch Labs
By FamilySearch July 2025 Recently, FamilySearch expanded its free online archives with over 30 million new records from 8 countries. Some exciting additions include 16 million civil registrations from Italy, 5 million cemetery records from Brazil, and nearly 1 million deceased physician records from the American Medical Association (AMA). Other countries with significant record additions… Read More New Historical Records from 8 Countries | July 2025
In May 2024, my wife Joy and I traveled to England to search for and meet our ancestors, both living and deceased. My great-great grandfather Thomas Bullock was an early convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Preston area of Manchester. As I have reviewed my family history, I’ve always… Read More Meeting My English Relative Charles Hall
Speaking at a Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf quoted Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple saying, “It is impossible to connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” Elder Uchtdorf went on to say, “What… Read More The Dots Will Connect
Note: On April 27, 2025, this article was previously published on The Family History Guide Blog by Bob Taylor. You could say it’s the end of an era and the beginning of a new one – volunteer indexing of FamilySearch records came to a close on April 21, which means that record batches can no… Read More New at FamilySearch: “Get Involved” Replaces User Indexing
Note: This article was published previously on the FamilySearch Blog site. While FamilySearch has billions of digitized historical records available to browse, only a small portion of them is indexed and searchable. However, with the aid of artificial intelligence and handwriting recognition technology, now over 1 billion more historical records can be searched. Full-Text Search is… Read More Full-Text Search: Find Records Faster with the Help of AI