A joint three-year project just completed by Archives New Zealand and FamilySearch International means that over 1.3 million images of historical records from Dunedin are now preserved digitally and will be accessible online in the coming months.
The feat was accomplished by volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supported by Archives New Zealand staff in Dunedin.
The two volunteers to finish the project are Bart and Debbie Edward from America who have served as records preservation missionaries, at their own expense, for the past 17 months. The images are of 59,073 probate files.
“The collaboration between FamilySearch and Archives New Zealand’s Dunedin office has proved to be very rewarding,” said Anne Jackman, director and regional archivist for Archives New Zealand.
FamilySearch International, formerly the Genealogical Society of Utah, is fully sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It hosts, preserves and shares billions of records in paper, microfilm and digital formats.
The collaboration between Archives New Zealand and FamilySearch is similar to those the Church has around the world. FamilySearch provides labour, equipment and hosting of the digitized records and Archives New Zealand ensures its valuable records are permanently preserved.
“Our special thanks go out to the staff and management at Archives New Zealand who have been tremendous to work with and so cooperative,” said Michael Higgins, Pacific area family history director for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He continued, “While we appreciate that both our organizations benefit from this type of project, we nonetheless feel privileged to have done our part, which was only made possible because of our wonderful volunteers.”
Read more about this records preservation project.