The following is excerpted from the Church News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

A global effort to digitize FamilySearch’s collection of millions of rolls of microfilm is now complete — a milestone 83 years in the making, the Church announced Tuesday, Sept. 21. 

The archive containing information on more than 11.5 billion individuals is available to the public on FamilySearch.org. Over 200 countries and principalities and more than 100 languages are represented in the digitized documents. 

The digitization project has been directed by the Church historian and recorder and executed by preservation professionals in the Church History Department. Records have been released online as they were digitized, and FamilySearch employees and volunteers will continue to index and process the remaining images for online access.

Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr., a General Authority Seventy serving as the Church historian and recorder, said the project shows the Church’s commitment to sharing and using its preserved records. 

“The Church has been dedicated to the proper preservation of records from the beginning, and we learn from Alma that we preserve records so that God’s children can see God’s hand in the lives of His children and covenant to accept and follow the Savior,” said Elder Curtis, referencing Alma 37:17-19, 46.

In addition to preservation professionals in the Church History Department, the effort also involved Church staff and senior missionaries who visited many religious and government archives worldwide over the past eight decades. 

“We hope that all those who contributed to this milestone in the last 80 years feel a sense of humble accomplishment today,” Steve Rockwood, CEO of FamilySearch International, said in a FamilySearch release. 

“And we hope the millions of individuals who will discover, gather and connect generation upon generation of their family members for years to come because of these efforts will have a deep sense of gratitude for the many unheralded contributors who made those discoveries possible.”

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.