Free Scanning Service Offered at Family History Centers

In a blog post by Paul G. Nauta on the FamilySearch.org Blog entitled, "What to Do with Those Old Family Photos, Letters, and Documents," FamilySearch announces the following:

FamilySearch International (online at FamilySearch.org) announced today a new, free family photo and document scanning and preservation service for patrons in thousands of its North American family history centers. Patrons can now digitally preserve and share their precious printed historic family photos and documents using customized Lexmark multifunction products (MFPs).

The announcement goes on to state:

FamilySearch has equipped over 2,800 of its local family history centers in North America with new Lexmark MFPs (coming soon to international centers). The Lexmark MFPs are easy to use and can digitally scan your documents and photographs quickly. The most exciting part is that software from Lexmark that runs on the MFP lets the user scan their documents and photos directly into a free FamilySearch.org account where the documents and photos can later be tagged, explained, shared with others, or attached to ancestors in your free FamilySearch Family Tree. You can also save the digital copies to a thumb drive and take them home with you.

The blog post linked to above contains a summary of the instructions about how to go about scanning documents and photos.

We have had the scanners at the Mesa FamilySearch Library for some time now and it is becoming increasingly common for patrons to come and sit and do their scanning. Of course, the volunteers and missionaries at the Library do not do your scanning for you, you must bring in your documents and do it yourself and copy the scanned images onto your own flashdrive. The only limit presently on the number of documents you can scan is your own endurance.

Check with your nearest FamilySearch Center (Family History Center) to see if they have implemented this free service.