Not-So-Silent Partners

Genealogy is all about relationships, so it was fitting that May 2007’s National Genealogical Society <ngsgenealogy.org> conference was abuzz over several newly forged business affiliations. These partnerships promise to put a plethora of genealogy records on the Web and expand access to existing ones:

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) + World Vital Records (WVR), Footnote, ProQuest CSA and the Godfrey Library <www.godfrey.org>: The LDS church <www.familysearch.org> will provide these companies’ subscription databases free at its Salt Lake City Family History Library and 4,500 branch Family History Centers (FHCs). ProQuest’s HeritageQuest Online <heritagequestonline.com> won’t be available in every center.

WVR’s <worldvitalrecords.com> and Footnote’s <footnote.com> paid content will benefit, too: With the church’s help, Footnote is posting 3 million Revolutionary War pension files. WVR subscribers and FHC visitors will get access to selected records the church microfilmed and digitized; indexes will be free on FamilySearch.

• WVR + Ellis Island and Quintin Publications: You’ll be able to visit WVR to search the database of 22 million names on Ellis Island passenger lists dating from 1892 to 1924 (results link to the records at <www.ellisisland.org>). WVR also will add Quintin Publications’ <www.quintinpublications.com> 10,000 compiled genealogies, local histories and other books.

• ProQuest CSA + LexisNexis: Pro-Quest is adding portions of LexisNexis’ US Serial Set – 480,000 page images from 150,000 government documents dating to 1789 – to HeritageQuest, which is accessible through subscribing libraries.

Parting Ways

The LDS church hopes its new partnerships will fill the void left last spring when the FHL and FHCs lost free Ancestry.com access for their patrons.

The Generations Network <tgn.com> had provided seven years of free Ancestry.com service without a contract. But when it tried to formalize the arrangement, the sides couldn’t reach a deal.