8 Billion Names Now Available On Family Search Database

SALT LAKE CITY — Family Search just hit a major milestone, now offering 8 billion names on their database.

This comes just in time for Hispanic Heritage month as consultants say those archives are some of the fastest growing.

Just because the doors are closed doesn’t mean the resources available at the Family History Library have slowed down. If anything, they’ve sped up.

With the pandemic, Family History researchers started doing online consultations and have helped hundreds of people around the world.

It’s a service that wasn’t available before and which they say is getting a lot of interest from the Latin community.

A great way to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month by connecting with the past.

“I’ve helped people in Guatemala,” said David Renchard, director of the Family History Library. “It’s just an incredible thing to converse with them face-to-face on-line, and to be able to solve their problem.”

“Si no hablas Ingles tiene la oportunidad de tener la cita en Espanol. We also speak Spanish so you can get an appointment in your language,” said Debbie Gurtler, Latin American research expert at the Family History Library.

The Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said the free on-line consultations have been so successful they will continue offering them after COVID ends.

They also said if you’ve searched a name before and came up empty handed, try again because they add 1 million new names every day, especially from countries like Mexico where records database are booming.