There’s not too many times in anyone’s lifetime when you get to say “Happy 120th Birthday” to someone, but now we can.
The world’s biggest genealogical organisation, FamilySearch has reached the mighty 120, and what an impressive milestone it is. Having started out as the Genealogical Society of Utah in 1894, to “assist members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seek out their ancestors and preserve their family trees for future generations”,
So to begin with I’d like to share my version of Happy Birthday with them and yourselves:
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to FamilySearrrccccchhhhhhhhh
You changed the world of genealogy
And for that we’d like to thank you!!
They really did change to world of genealogy which started as soon as they began collecting records way back in 1894, and they haven’t stopped. Their collection is beyond comprehension, and is stored in a multi-level mountain in Utah (granite Mountain). If you haven’t seen the mountain, be sure to check out this video …
http://youtu.be/5KLea_DPxb4
They have records from over 100 countries, some which are now the only copy in existence. Their their vast collection grows daily, but the image below gives you some idea of the figures …
FamilySearch wrote a lengthy post about their 120th anniversary. I’m not going to reproduce it here, but if you’re interested to know more about the history of the company you can read it here.
And they have produced this cool timeline infographic which shows they key happenings in the life of FamilySearch, and you can see how quickly things have been happening since the 1990s. (You’ll need to right-click it to see it nice an big).
(right click for a larger view)
Being 120 years old certainly hasn’t slowed FamilySearch down in anyway, in fact it they seem to have a who new lease on life, and are making things happen quicker than ever.
and while some organisations might run out of steam, it seems that FamilySearch are just getting started.
So from all of us here are Gould Genealogy & History, we’d like to wish FamilySearch a very 120th Birthday 120th, and we’re looking forward to what the next 120 years brings.
