Among many developments, FamilySearch plans to digitize millions of more genealogical records, improve computer-assisted indexing and provide more volunteer experiences.

Advances in computer-assisted indexing and other digital innovations, new volunteer experiences, the largest family history conference in the world and, of course, more genealogy records — are all part of what FamilySearch is planning for patrons in 2024. 

FamilySearch, an international family history website sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offered a preview of its plans for the coming year in a news release on Jan. 17.

Here is what Latter-day Saints can expect to see at FamilySearch:

Access to more family history records

FamilySearch will continue to work with record custodians and other organizations worldwide to digitize millions of more historical records, to preserve them and make them more widely available.

FamilySearch will continue to digitize records in more than 75 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Oceania, with significant new additions coming for collections in Peru and Portugal.

Last year, FamilySearch collaborated with Ancestry and the Library and Archives Canada to make the 1931 Canada census available for free research. FamilySearch will add the full 1921 Canada census this year.

FamilySearch will also continue to gather oral genealogies from Africa, as well as other unique record sets, and make them digitally searchable. This search feature will allow patrons to explore the oral genealogies from more than 15 African countries by tribe, village and surname with access to photos, audio recordings and lineages preserved through interviews.

Computer-assisted indexing

In 2024, FamilySearch plans to improve its computer-assisted indexing algorithms to recognize and index historical genealogical records in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English. This handwriting recognition technology, combined with the contributions of online volunteers, will make millions of document images text-searchable faster and enable more people to discover their family heritage.

Full-text search

On a related note, FamilySearch has been leveraging its AI-powered handwriting recognition technology to also improve its record search experience. 

In 2024, FamilySearch hopes to make the search experience more powerful by adding full-text search capability to select record sets.

You can read a lot more about future plans in an article by Trent Toone published in the thechurchnews.com web site at: http://tinyurl.com/mr4622r3.