Registration Now Open for the StLGS Annual Research Trip to Salt Lake City

Time to Register for the 2019 Salt Lake City Research Trip!

Registration for the St. Louis Genealogical Society's annual genealogy research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, is now open. This year's adventure begins on Sunday, 27 October and ends the following Sunday, 3 November.

This is the society's twenty-sixth 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, shuttle service to and from the airport, a Sunday dinner, Monday evening meeting, and individual assistance all week long from two experienced leaders. A pre-trip meeting 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 Family History 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 it's supposedly all online anyway?

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 Family History Library because of agreements signed with the owners.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints own both the library and the FamilySearch website and 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 Family History 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.
• 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 for free or to print them on paper for a nominal fee.
• Professionals and volunteers, including translators, are available to assist you on each floor.

Interested in Going?

Pre-registration is taking place from now until 30 June, 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!