1000 collections on FamilySearch Historical Record Collections

On December 31, 2011, the FamilySearch Historical Record Collections reached the milestone of 1000 collections. It is important to understand the definition of a collection to appreciate this achievement. When you look online at genealogical record collections you will find a lot of different ways of measuring the size of the database. Commonly, the numbers put out in promotion of the database refer to the number of people or individuals. This is sometimes a number in the billions. But the problem with using this number is that many of the records have the same individuals over and over again.

Other references used by the genealogy databases refer to records, pages and other nebulous types of references. The FamilySearch reference to "collections" is also somewhat vague. But there is a major difference. The Historical Record Collections are essentially, with some exceptions, digitized copies of existing microfilms from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some of the individual collections include dozens and dozens of individual microfilms. Each microfilm can have tens of thousands of individual records about families and individuals.

If you have not taken time to look at the new additions, you will be missing a major online genealogical resource.