Ready to Visit the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City? Come With Us This Fall!

If you attended (or plan to watch the recordings of) this year's Family History Conference, you were lucky enough to hear FamilySearch's Chief Genealogical Officer, David Rencher, talk about the exciting changes the library has undergone in the past few years. Perhaps you didn't realize that the FamilySearch library in Salt Lake City has so much to offer: five floors of books, computers, microfilms, maps, and more. Or maybe you didn't know that St. Louis Genealogical Society leads a group tour there every autumn, and it's time to register for this year's trip! Here are all the details . . .

This year's adventure begins on Sunday, 29 September 2024 and ends the following Sunday, 2 October. This will be the society's thirty-first annual trip to the world's largest library devoted just to genealogy. For one full week, you can enjoy non-stop, uninterrupted working time in this huge genealogy playground!

The trip includes seven nights at the Salt Lake Plaza Hotel, right next door to the library and across the street from Temple Square and a light rail station (free in downtown Salt Lake City), a Sunday dinner, Monday evening meeting, and individual assistance all week long from two experienced leaders. A pre-trip hybrid meeting (in-person at our office and via Zoom for those who are out of town) and an electronic mailing list ensure that all your questions are answered and give participants a chance to get to know each other a bit before traveling.

If most of your genealogy research has been done online, perhaps you've never even heard of the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. Or maybe you have been to the FamilySearch.org website or heard about the Mormons and their interest in genealogy and wondered what the connection is. Why go to Salt Lake City when so much is online anyway?

(Photo by Ilene Murray; used with permission)

Some Items to Consider:

• First, less than ten percent of all available family history documents are online.
• Copyright restrictions and state and local laws have and will continue to prevent "everything" from being offered online in the near future.
• Some books and/or documents that were filmed in the past are available ONLY in the FamilySearch Library because of contractual agreements signed with the owners.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns both the library and the FamilySearch website, and they provide all of the contents to genealogists for free. Doing so perpetuates their strong religious beliefs about ancestry and family and makes it possible for family historians to retrieve millions of records in one location. 
• Working in the library with two experienced leaders to guide you may be just what you need to move forward in your research. 

What's in the Library? 

• The FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City is the world's largest library devoted just to genealogy. It contains four floors of history and genealogy books, microfilm/fiche, maps, and reference books from every state and most countries, and one floor devoted to genealogy activities that are just plain fun.
• An increasingly large computer network gives access to many subscription websites and many records that previously had been on CDs or DVDs. Some of those records are ONLY available at the library because of the above mentioned copyright restrictions.
• Very fast, modern digitizing and printing machines are on each floor, allowing you to save files to your own media or to print them on paper for free.
• Professionals and volunteers, including translators, are available to assist you on each floor.
• New stations have been installed for converting slides, video cassettes, old films, and other obsolete media into digital formats. Bring along items if you have them; there is no charge for this service.

Interested in Going?

Early registration is taking place from now until 30 June 2024, and you can save $100 and take part in all the pre-trip preparations if you register by that date. More information and a four-page registration flyer are on the StLGS website. If you have any questions, please send an email to slctrip@stlgs.org. We hope you will join us!