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By Kent Larsen
Efforts of 12,000 LDS Volunteers Bear Fruit Today
NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of three
guests of honor at the Ellis Island National Monument this morning for the
dedication of the Island's American Family Immigration History Center. The
ceremony today, which also features US Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton
and Ellis Island Foundation Founding Chairman Lee Iacocca, will also mark
the official availability of a 22-million record database compiled by 12,000
LDS volunteers.
The center is the Ellis Island genealogical library, a state-of-the-art
computer facility located in the Island's main building. It will house the
huge database of every immigrant that legally entered the US through Ellis
Island and other New York ports between 1892 and 1924, the peak years of the
immigration. In the center, the data will be available through 31 computer
terminals, and users will be able to then take the information discovered to
10 special booths that will allow users to create web-based genealogical
scrapbooks. Access to the terminals and booths in the center will cost $5
per half hour. The database will also be available for free on the Internet
starting today.
The celebration held today recognizes the importance of the collection,
which includes at least one ancestor of an estimated 40% of all Americans.
It is timed for April 17th because today is the anniversary of the day that
Ellis Island processed the most immigrants ever -- 11,747 on April 17, 1907.
As a result, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, the National
Genealogical Society and America's Governors have declared today "Ellis
Island Family History Day."
For LDS Church members, including the 12,000 members from 2,700
congregations in the US and Canada, today represents the culmination of
their labor as the database comes online. According to the LDS Church, those
volunteers logged over 5 million hours during seven years transcribing the
records from ship passenger manifests that often were photocopies or
microfilm copies of faded and damaged hand-written documents. The documents
were also sometimes difficult simply because of the nature of the
immigration. "You might be transcribing the names of individuals who were
immigrating from Greece, then a couple of lines later there's someone who's
coming from Italy." said Wayne Metcalfe, who helped direct the project for
the LDS Church. "When your native language is English and you're trying to
transcribe these names, it presents a real challenge."
Metcalfe also oversaw a group of 100 full-time volunteers at the LDS
Church's Family History Library in Salt Lake City, who coordinated the
efforts, ensuring accuracy and making corrections as necessary. He estimates
that the project would have cost up to $10 million without the volunteer labor.
"Our volunteers really put their hearts into this project," said Peggy
Crook, who oversaw volunteers from an LDS ward in Sandy, Utah. "The
incentive for many of them was knowing they had relatives who immigrated to
the United States and arrived at Ellis Island."
Given the breadth and size of the data, the demand for the information
should be huge, "There are a lot of people who are anxious to see this
information," said Metcalfe, "This is the tool everybody's waiting for to go
back to Ellis Island and find their ancestors." Elder Richard Turley Jr.,
managing director of the Family and Church History Department of the Church
says that the Church is pleased to have compiled the data, "It's a marvelous
way of helping people in this nation of immigrants to establish a tie."
Meanwhile, the Utah Genealogical Association's 2001 conference ended this
past Saturday at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. An article on the
conference in Monday's Salt Lake Tribune reports that Genealogy is the
fourth most popular hobby in the U.S and the third most popular topic on the
Internet. "It's the third most popular topic people hit on the Internet,
right after pornography and finance," said UGA conference chairwoman Marilyn
Markham.
The conference helped visitors learn about the newest technology available
to genealogists. Markham says that technology has transformed genealogy,
allowing researchers to gain access to information once available only to
genealogists in seconds instead of years. "The Computer Age has been a boon
to genealogy," she said.
Sources:
Searching for ancestors gets easier with Ellis Island database
Boston Globe (AP) 17Apr01 I6
By Hannah Wolfson: Associated Press
Sec. Norton to Participate in Dedication of History Center
USNewswire 16Apr01 N6
Family Trees Get New Link
(Long Island) NY Newsday 16Apr01 I6
By Mae M. Cheng: Staff Writer
LDS Church Helped Create Online Ellis Island Records
Salt Lake Tribune 17Apr01 I6
By Peggy Fletcher Stack: Salt Lake Tribune
Passing Through, They Left a Mark
Los Angeles Times 16Apr01 I6
By Robert Strauss: Special to the Times
Ellis Island immigrant manifests will be available online and at the national monument.
Genealogy Becomes Third Most-Popular Hobby
Salt Lake Tribune 16Apr01 N6
By Mark Eddington: Salt Lake Tribune
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