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Family Bible · janeiro 10, 2020

CONTRIBUTING YOUR FAMILY RESEARCH compilations to the FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY

some thoughts

[ be sure and click "expand post" ]

How many of you who have done extensive family research over the years - wonder how you can submit your work to the Family History Library?

(I'm not referring to submissions of data via FamilySearch Family Tree)

but I am referring to both physical and/or digital copies of books, compilations,

reports, data collections etc. to the family history Library in Salt Lake (and

potentially - according to your wishes - made available across the world)

Now in the world before the Internet - publishing your research meant compiling and

physically printing and then selling a book - which was quite costly.

Now days - there really is no reason that anyone - who really wishes to – can’t share

their research with others - even if it is not published in physical book

format. Not just database files and / or data submitted to Family Tree - but

just about anything.

Here are some ideas:

1) Any books that you or anyone has physically produced can be donated to the the

Family History Library. However in most cases they much prefer the book with a

permission to digitize and then make the physical book available digitally for

free.

Now some people may cringe at not being able to charge for the book and not keep the

control that they once had in the days before the Internet. But if you ask me -

people should be more focused on sharing their data freely - then trying to

make some income from their "book" - but lets stay on subject . . .

You can submit a book in physical format - and request that the digital copy not be

distributed

2) If you have a pdf copy of a book or compilation - you can also submit that to the

Family History Library (actually they prefer that these days)

3) Even if you dont have a perfectly organized "book" in some word processor format - please consider that you may still have digital items that you have created that would be worth submitting to the FHL in digital format. Maybe you wrote a short biography about an ancestor that maybe in your mind doesn’t qualify as a “book”. It could still be submitted – though short biographies would probably be best submitted via FamilySearch Memories.

Really anything you have compiled in textual format of significant size – that you feel would be of interest to others can be submitted.

4) You may also have a collection of items - old photos is just one example - in relation to a specific person.

Now FamilySearch memories is great for uploading photos etc. But if you had 50 photos lets say all related to a given family – and you were able to scan them and make them part of a document – along with labeling and stories about the people in the photos – such could surely be placed in pdf format and submitted to the Family History Library.

5) If you have other items that are not really in book format – but you feel would be of value to others – and you want to share and ensure it is preserved - please share a description of your information – and I can provide a suggestion as to how best preserve it.

6) Way, way too many times – I hear of people wishing to “organize” their information and eventually get it into book format - but truth is - - time marches on – and sooner or later – they are six feet under – and the month after they pass – the family throws their garage full of paper into the garbage – because they frankly just don’t know how to handle it all.

People have great intentions with their family research collections - - way too often, however – the good intentions go down the drain - and don’t get converted into real actions (and maybe for what they feel are excuse-able reasons) but maybe they just didn’t realize what were some of the real options that maybe would have been more within their limited reach – but they just didn’t consider it.

DONT WAIT to get all your research in perfectly organized format before you find ways to preserve it.

RATHER – PRESERVE YOUR RECORDS FIRST and then find ways to organize it and more formally publish it.

Let me know your thoughts about information YOU have gathered over the years.

For submitting items to the Family History Library

Here is a summary of how to donate.

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Family_History_Library_Donations

this may also be helpful:

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/What_to_do_with_the_genealogy_and_family_history_I_collected

This is also a summary of a scanning project of mine:

http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/scanning.htm

This is a summary of physical versus digital publishing

http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/digital_versus_physical.htm