‘Prophetically Directed’: Reflecting on the Historic Launch of FamilySearch.org 25 Years Later

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This story appears here courtesy of TheChurchNews.com. It is not for use by other media.

By Trent Toone, Church News

In October 1997, President Gordon B. Hinckley introduced the concept of smaller temples to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and spoke of a vision to expand temples globally.

It was exciting news, but it signaled the need for significant changes in how the Church’s Family History Department processed names for temple work, said Richard E. Turley Jr., who began serving as the managing director of the department in 1996.

“When I came aboard, there were 47 operating temples, and President Hinckley wanted 100 by the turn of the Millennium. That required doubling the number of names being provided for temple work, and using the systems we had at the time — that would not work,” Turley said. “We had to re-engineer how we did family history.”

The problem led to the development of a new website known today as FamilySearch.org. Today, FamilySearch.org provides billions of genealogical records and resources free of charge to help millions of people worldwide discover their heritage and make family connections.

Launched in 1999, FamilySearch.org commemorated its 25th anniversary in May of this year.

The milestone comes the same year as FamilySearch International celebrated its 130th anniversary.

In a Church News interview, Turley reflected on some of the events surrounding the historic launch of FamilySearch.org, a story also told in Chapter 30 of “Saints,” Volume 4.

“Clearly, it was prophetically directed,” Turley said of the Church’s family history website. “FamilySearch is a divinely inspired program that makes it possible for the temples to function.”

‘A Big Vision’

At that time, preparing names for temple work was a time-consuming and costly process.

In some countries, it involved traveling great distances to search archival records, as well as locating and sorting through extensive images on rolls of microfilm.

In the 1980s, some members had personal computers, which helped. The Church had developed Personal Ancestral File, a program to record, store and share genealogical information, which made it easier to submit names to the temple via Temple Ready. But it was resulting in “massive duplication,” Turley said.

The decision was made to consolidate all databases into a cloud-like system and launch it online — creating a searchable online family history database.

The plan required external assistance and time for development. They had to figure out how to make computers accessible to Latter-day Saints around the world. They halted building FamilySearch Centers in North America and diverted funds to areas where members didn’t have ready access to computers.

Microfilm cameras in the field were converted into digital cameras. All microfilm records needed to be electronically searchable. Indexing those images was a monumental task that hundreds of thousands of volunteers later accomplished through crowdsourcing.

Everything then needed to be optimized for streaming over the limited internet bandwidth available, which “in the early days, wasn’t so good,” Turley said.

“It was a big vision — to go from microfilm to digital.”

Global Internet Connection

In its early days, the internet was seen more as a source of negative influences, especially with concerns about pornography and predators in chat rooms.

However, Church leaders recognized the internet’s potential for good, as Turley learned from then-Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles when seeking approval for FamilySearch to go online.

“He told me that there were only three things that he recalls in the history of his experience that went through almost instantaneously. One was the subtitle of the Book of Mormon, ‘Another Testament of Jesus Christ’; another was the reorganization of the Seventy; and the third one was FamilySearch,” Turley said.

“So it was approved quite readily by Church leaders who had the vision to see how the internet could be a very important way to connect people together globally and to make it possible for temples to function across the world.”

The Name

Months before the launch, the team considered names like “Ancestors,” “RootSearch” and “KindredQuest” for the website.

Yahoo had a large internet presence at the time, and the idea of “Ma-and-Pa-hoo” was suggested.

“It works well in English because it’s a clever pun, but it would not work as well in multiple languages around the world,” Turley said.

So they decided to go with “FamilySearch,” a name already established via CD-ROM in various parts of the world.

Millions of Hits

In early 1999, the new website was ready for testing.

At that point, FamilySearch.org offered access to records of 400 million deceased individuals and enabled users to share information. Although uncertain how members would adapt to this new online tool, the team designed the website to accommodate 5 million visitors at a time.

“In those days, when you talked about millions, people sometimes felt that was maybe being a little bit over-optimistic,” Turley said. “But we were saying to ourselves, ‘Let’s build this for millions to use at a time.’”

When the web address was leaked as part of a beta test, the website quickly began receiving 5 million hits a day. Astounded, the team engineered the website to handle more than 25 million hits per day. However, as they later found out, it still wasn't enough.

“When we launched it, and I went on the ‘Today’ show, that national and international coverage caused us to have an estimated 100 million hits that day,” Turley said. “We had to reassign users as they came into a quarter-hour segment because it could only handle 25 million hits at a time.”

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The Launch

On May 24, 1999, simultaneous launch events were held in two locations and linked by satellite. Church leaders gathered at the Family History Library in Salt Lake for the main launch event while Turley, then-Elder Russell M. Nelson and others were at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

President Hinckley, joined by his counselors President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust, as well as a host of other Church leaders, spoke to news media and pushed a computer button to carry out a “virtual ribbon cutting” as it was characterized by Elder D. Todd Christofferson, then of the Presidency of the Seventy and the executive director of the Family History Department, the Church News reported.

“This is a very significant day,” President Hinckley said. “Today, we are taking a historic step as we officially launch ‘FamilySearch.org.’ I hope you understand that this is far from just a new website.”

After the news conference in Utah concluded, Elder Nelson gave brief remarks in Washington, D.C., FamilySearch.org was demonstrated, and the Church responded to reporters’ questions.

Just as Turley was about to board a plane for Utah, he was invited to stay and appear on the “Today” show the next day. Show producers knew him because a few weeks earlier, he was on the show to do a demonstration of how to do family history.

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Sitting in a director’s chair across from host Katie Couric with a computer displaying the new FamilySearch website, Turley spoke to why Latter-day Saints have such an interest in family history work.

“We believe that families can be eternal,” he said. “To allow our members to do research, we collect records from around the world.”

The impact on the new website was “remarkable,” Turley said, as FamilySearch.org was overwhelmed with 100 million hits.

“The response was extraordinary,” he said. “One industry expert told us this was one of the fastest websites in history to that point to go big. ... Ours went big fast, and it stayed big.”

‘Divinely Inspired Program’

Twenty-five years later, the Church has continued to build temples — 367 operating, announced or under construction — that need to be “nourished with names,” President Nelson has said.

FamilySearch.org, with its records, resources and the “Ordinances Ready” tool, is helping to hasten the Lord’s work and bless the lives of many around the world, including nonmembers who want to know their ancestry.

“There was a time when individuals had a hard time finding names to take to the temple,” Turley said. “Today, people find names through FamilySearch and take them to the temple quite readily.”

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