Exhibition In Beds Shows How To Trace Your Family Tree

Libraries hold the International Genealogical Index on microfiche.

Views of a display about tracing your family tree at Leighton Buzzard Library, Bedfordshire. This includes examples of family photographs, baptism, marriage and burial records in parish registers and advice to ask relatives for information. Anglia TV reporter Peter Lugg says that genealogy or family history research is an interest for 100,000 people in the UK alone. He visits a churchyard and looks at the headstone on a grave. What the hobby needed was a special index to parish records, and now the Mormon Church has published the International Genealogical Index on microfiche. Sitting at a microfiche reader, two men consult the index produced by the Church of Latter Day Saints from their headquarters in Salt Lake City. It holds millions of name entries worldwide and is easy to read because it is presented as a database index to parish registers and other records. Copies of the Index are available at many local libraries. Leighton Buzzard Library holds the index for four counties as well as London. Norman Holding, Chairman of Bedfordshire Family History Society says the index is not an improvement on parish registers but an adjunct which helps the researcher discover where to go in their research and find the original sources through one alphabetical list of names. The reporter explains that family history is important to the Mormon Church because members believe they can help their ancestors gain entry to heaven by being baptised on their behalf. Ray Wiggins, a Church member, says there are over 88 million records microfilmed dating as far back as the mid 1500s, and available to anyone interested. Besides the display, Leighton Buzzard Library is offering two seminars on family history. This short video was made to be shown in a news story on Anglia Television early evening news / magazine programme About Anglia.

Keywords

Family history; Genealogy; Ancestors; Archives; Historical research; Mormon Church; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; International Genealogical Index