This weekend, FamilySearch International is hosting its third worldwide indexing event. The organization is looking for 72,000 people to complete at least one indexing batch during a 72-hour period on July 15-17. With a purpose of “saving the world’s records,” FamilySearch hopes to have people of all ages and nationalities participate but the event is targeted toward youth and millennials.
The FamilySearch website gives a list of instructions for those who want to participate. The first step is to download and install the software if participants are new to indexing. The software allows volunteer indexers to access a variety of documents to digitize. After installing the software, FamilySearch encourages participants to share the event and invite their friends to help index records.
"Family history discoveries online are driven by indexed records," said Shipley Munson, FamilySearch International’s senior vice president of marketing, in a press release. "Volunteer indexers make those personal discoveries happen. Without them, much of what we do would not be possible. We invite everyone to join in this important cause to preserve history."
Once the event begins participants can choose how many records to index. Millions of historical records worldwide are available for volunteers to help index and more records are added each year. The organization is dependent upon the help volunteers provide. Since online indexing was introduced in 2006, volunteers have helped make over 1 billion records searchable online which makes it easier for people to find information about their ancestors.
"FamilySearch believes everyone deserves to be remembered," Munson said in the press release. "All should have the opportunity to find their ancestors, and we provide a simple way for people to make those family connections."
After the worldwide event concludes volunteers can continue to index records and help individuals find records about their ancestors.