FamilySearch 2024 Genealogy Highlights

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In 2024, FamilySearch, the world’s largest nonprofit genealogy organization, celebrated notable milestones, including its 130^th anniversary as an organization and the 25^th anniversary of its popular website, FamilySearch.org.

Advancements in FamilySearch’s artificial intelligence, new historical records collections, and RootsTech by FamilySearch, helped millions of visitors make new ancestor discoveries and connections.FamilySearch enjoyed more than 285 million visits from across the planet in 2024. Patrons frequented FamilySearch’s growing record collections, interactive discovery experiences like Surnames and Ancestors, and helpful articles on the FamilySearch Wiki and Blog.

Read more in this Newsroom story Reflecting on the Historic Launch of FamilySearch 25 Years Later

Free Genealogical Records

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The most popular reason for visiting FamilySearch.org in 2024 was free access to massive amounts of the world’s genealogical records. FamilySearch offers online access to records for more than 170 countries and principalities. More than 2.5 billion new searchable records and images were added in 2024 — totaling more than 20.5 billion for the website. FamilySearch began publishing the Africa oral genealogies with searchable indexes for 12 African countries. The country collections receiving the most significant increase on FamilySearch were the USA, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Portugal, France, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile and Ireland. (Search the expanded collections.)

The Collaborative FamilySearch Family Tree

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The world’s largest online family tree grew by over 150 million people in 2024, totaling 1.67 billion searchable people. Contributors also added 530 million sources to their ancestors in the tree — which helps increase accuracy and collaboration. In addition, FamilySearch added three new user features to the Family Tree:

1. Merge Analysis Feature simplifies the ability to review and correct merges, and you can better understand the “before and after” of each merge.
2. Portrait Pedigree View Update allows you to view siblings, a single-family line, and multiple family lines simultaneously, add relatives quickly without leaving the page, and distinguish living individuals more easily.
3. 3 Star Record Hints introduce a broader range of record considerations for experienced researchers to explore.

FamilySearch Digital Books Online

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The FamilySearch Digital Library added more than 45,000 new books in 2024. Users now have more than 630,000 free historical publications available to search. Digitized books are full-text searchable, making it easy to discover who or what you’re searching.

FamilySearch Library and Centers

The FamilySearch Library and its global network of FamilySearch centers and affiliates help expand access to FamilySearch’s vast resources and discovery experiences. They also offer individual search assistance and free access to premium genealogy websites.

FamilySearch added 324 new FamilySearch centers in 2024, totaling more than 6,500 locations worldwide. FamilySearch Help was updated to help family history researchers get more answers to their ancestral questions.

This year, the library offered 85 free webinars, including more classes in Spanish and Portuguese. It also provides hundreds more on-demand in multiple languages. The list of courses is in the library’s Learning Center.

RootsTech 2024 Quick Facts

RootsTech 2024 inspired and entertained participants from all over the world. Millions more continue to enjoy the free 2024 content online year-round and on-demand at RootsTech.org.

• Participants joined from 232 countries and territories.
• More than 4 million participants attended in person and online.
• More than 500,000 participants viewed 5.9 million ancestral relationships through a popular, global Relatives at RootsTech experience that will be repeated in 2025.

RootsTech 2024 Keynotes included:

• Steve Rockwood, the CEO of FamilySearch International.
• Kristin Chenoweth, Emmy® and Tony Award®-winning actress and singer.
• Lynne M. Jackson, author, president, and founder of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation.
• Nancy Borowick, world-renowned Sony artisan photographer and humanitarian.
• Henry Cho, acclaimed comedian and the first Asian-American to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.
• Katie James, a famous Colombian singer-songwriter and guitarist, was a virtual keynote.
• Kirby Heyborne, popular actor, comedian and narrator, was the RootsTech 2024 emcee and made many appearances on the main stage.

Read more in this Newsroom story Highlights from RootsTech 2024

New to RootsTech 2024 were four special forum sessions that addressed innovative developments:

• Innovation and Tech Forum. Technological developments from AI to predictive analytics will help make family connections in ways never imagined.
• Impact Forum. Distinguished researchers delved into the positive ways that knowing your family history can impact personal resilience and mental health.
• FamilySearch Tech Forum. FamilySearch tech leaders discussed the latest developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics and their positive impacts on family history.
• FamilySearch Global Forum. FamilySearch’s global leadership discussed the organization’s homeland efforts to make family discoveries accessible to individuals worldwide.

Other FamilySearch 2024 News

FamilySearch Get Involved: Volunteer Impact

Online volunteers continue to help FamilySearch users make even more family discoveries. Volunteers are integral in supporting the FamilySearch Community forums and Get Involved, where they help make millions of images of historical records easily searchable. They improve upon FamilySearch’s artificial intelligence by refining computer-generated indexes from hundreds of millions of record images.

One hundred million record images of 19th-century US land records and deeds were added to the Get Involved Quick Name Review. These are the best pre-census materials available for genealogical research in the US. Other country records were also added in 2024.

If you want to help even more, consider trying the Get Involved Full Name Review. Like Quick Name Review, you’ll improve upon FamilySearch’s computer-generated indexes. One difference is that Full Name Review has you check whether a person’s full name was indexed, including name prefixes, given names, surnames and name suffixes.

To see the complete list of projects available, learn more at FamilySearch Get Involved.

FamilySearch Labs

FamilySearch Labs was introduced in 2024 to engage interested users in exploring FamilySearch’s potential features and improvements. Tens of thousands of users have generously logged in to use and improve features—from the FamilySearch Family Tree to mobile apps to artificial intelligence applications. Check out FamilySearch Labs to explore features such as Full-Text Search, Family Group Trees, Find Help with AI Search, Together by FamilySearch, and Data Quality Score.

FamilySearch Full-text Search

Artificial Intelligence is changing the world in extraordinary ways. FamilySearch Full-text Search is training its AI to unlock hidden discoveries in millions of its handwritten historical records. Using handwriting recognition and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, FamilySearch can convert an image of text into a machine-readable text format, allowing users to search the full text of the records. Browse the extensive list of collections currently available in the FamilySearch Full-text Search.

The 10 Million Names Project

FamilySearch announced its collaboration with American Ancestors on 10 Million Names, an initiative to recover the names and restore information to families of the estimated 10 million men, women and children of African descent enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America. FamilySearch is sharing its artificial intelligence and technology solutions to help identify enslaved persons from its millions of searchable historical records and help 10 Million Names identify, digitize, transcribe and publish new, previously unavailable collections.

Read more in this Newsroom story FamilySearch, American Ancestors Collaboration to Recover Names of 10 Million Enslaved Africans

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsors the nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 125 years. People access the free services and resources online at FamilySearch.org or through over 6,000 FamilySearch centers in 129 countries, including the central FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.