Volunteers in New Zealand are approaching the milestone of digitizing two million images from will and probate records according to FamilySearch spokesman Mike Higgins.
Last month volunteers working in Archives New Zealand’s Wellington offices reached the one million mark, and with the ongoing digitizing there as well as in Auckland and Christchurch, over two million images will be completed in the first few months of 2013, Mr Higgins said.
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Tom & Ann McVey and Don & Kathy Overton are serving as volunteers for FamilySearch, McVeys for 23 months and Overtons for 18 months. The McVeys are from Denver, Colorado and the Overtons come from St. George, Utah. Each day they take photographs of probate records with specially-designed cameras and computer software. It is a painstaking process but one worth the effort, Tom McVey says.
“Once these valuable records are digitized and made available to government officials and the public online, it becomes so much easier and faster to gather important information about our forebears.”
The McVeys, Overtons along with the Spencers in Auckland as well as Charolette Nation and Lynne Chelius in Christchurch are working closely with Archives New Zealand staff to capture digital images of paper records that document New Zealanders’ probate and will information dating back to the 1860's. Once the records are digitized they are made available to the public free of charge through FamilySearch.org. Over three billion records are available to search on this site.
Two hundred FamilySearch digitizing teams throughout the world are visiting churches and archives in 45 countries, and photographing birth, death, church, and immigration records as well as wills to help genealogists learn about their ancestors.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsors the non-profit family history organization FamilySearch. This organization has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years.
Carole Keith of Sparks, Nevada, who is researching her family history said “I’ve found the records [to be] invaluable. [They have] helped me verify some of my German ancestry and where they came from. The fact that these people are looking up information and documenting it and adding it to their database is a godsend.”
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the word. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history.
In January 2004 a super tropical cyclone destroyed the vital birth, death and marriage records of the Pacific island of Niue. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had microfilmed these records, which preserved the information that had been destroyed. In February 2004, copies of the microfilmed records were presented by Church representatives to the government and people of Niue.
Watch a video about how the Church assisted the people of Niue by providing a replacement set of the nation’s vital records after the hurricane destroyed the original documents.
Watch a FamilySearch introductory video titled ‘What’s your story?’