Tag Archives: FamilySearch

FamilySearch tips

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FamilySearch is a free genealogy website that features records from around the world. While the exact records available vary by time period and geographic location, generally speaking, you can access vital records, wills, probates, land records, marriage records, religious records and more. With the addition of Full Text Search, FamilySearch now has a dizzying array of search options that are useful in different contexts. This blog post will help you know which one is right for your research.

Screen cap of FamilySearch’s seven search options.

FamilySearch’s seven search options.

Records
On the Records tab, you can search indexes created by FamilySearch indexers over the years. This search includes both full record sets, where you can see the record images, and indexes where the images are not available. This is one of the oldest search features in FamilySearch and it includes many of the core documents for genealogy research, such as federal censuses, marriage records and birth and death records. Only the names in records are indexed, not other text such as business names, addresses or religious terminology.

Screen cap of records search.

Records search allows you to search historical records from around the world.

Full Text Search
Full Text Search is FamilySearch’s newest search option. It has been available for experimental use for almost a year, but became a full feature in September 2025. Full Text Search uses AI and machine learning to transcribe handwritten documents, much like optical character recognition has been used to transcribe typed documents, such as newspapers. Because this is a new feature, most of the record sets are in English, but FamilySearch plans to add records in other languages as they improve and refine the search features. While some of the records indexed in Full Text Search are also in Records search, most are not. This opens up access to previously difficult record sets, because you can use keyword searching instead of having to browse records page by page. Because the indexing is done by machine, every word is indexed, not just the names of people. So, you can search for anything in the records, such as street addresses, business and organization names and specific legal or technical terminology.

Screencap of sample full text search.

Full Text Search lets you search entire records, not just indexed names.

Images
Images is not a true search feature, but it allows you to access unindexed record sets. Although FamilySearch’s volunteer indexers and Full Text Search have made great strides in making records searchable, FamilySearch still has vast swaths of records that are not searchable. Since you can’t search Images for people by name, you have to browse the image sets by geographic location to see what is available for the place you are researching. After choosing a location, you can narrow your results by record type and date range.

Screencap of sample image search.

Using Images, you can browse indexed and unindexed record sets by geographic location.

Family Tree
One of FamilySearch’s unique features is a shared family tree where users can connect their research with other people’s work. You can also search the tree to see what other researchers have found on the people you are researching. Since this is a shared tree, it’s always good to confirm the accuracy of the research that is presented, but this is a useful way to avoid duplicating efforts in your research.

Screencap of sample family tree search.

Family Tree shows others’ research as part of one big, interconnected tree.

Genealogies
The Genealogies search lets you search personal family trees and oral genealogies and histories that individuals have chosen to share with FamilySearch. Unlike the Family Tree, other users can’t edit these genealogies. But they are another way of sharing information and research with others.

Screencap of sample genealogy search.

Genealogies searches family trees and oral histories collected from around the world.

Catalog
Catalog search works similarly to Images. It allows you to browse FamilySearch’s holdings by geographic location. While Images mostly contains recently digitized record sets, Catalog contains the older materials that FamilySearch microfilmed between the 1930s and the 2010s. Although the film has been digitized and is accessible to researchers, it often has not been indexed so you will need to look page by page through the records to find what you are looking for.

Screencap of sample catalog search.

Catalog lets you browse records by geographic location.

Books
FamilySearch has digitized a large number of books and periodicals from the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City as well as from genealogy libraries around the world. These books are fully searchable and you can also download PDF copies to your device. While some books are not available outside of the FamilySearch Library, most can be accessed at home, making research even more convenient.

Screencap of sample books search.

Books searches full text genealogy books from libraries around the world.

Accessing FamilySearch
FamilySearch is free to use and accessible from anywhere. However, some record sets are available only at Family History Centers and FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries. Fortunately, the Indiana State Library is a FamilySearch Affiliate Library and you can access everything FamilySearch has to offer through any of our public computers.

This blog post is by Jamie Dunn, Genealogy Division supervisor.

New technology opens up vast world of records through FamilySearch

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In 2023, FamilySearch debuted a new feature for researchers: Full-Text Search. Using handwriting recognition technology, FamilySearch is indexing and making searchable massive numbers of records that were unindexed and difficult to navigate before now.

At this time, Full-Text Search includes over 4,500 record sets from all seven continents (yes, including Antarctica). FamilySearch continues to add new record sets and to expand the number of records in currently indexed sets.

Indiana records currently included in Full-Text Search.

To access Full-Text Search, you will need a free FamilySearch account, which you can create at www.familysearch.org. Once you have an account, visit the FamilySearch Labs page to join Full-Text Search. Since it is currently in testing, it’s not part of the regular FamilySearch search experience. After joining, you can use Full-Text Search to search for any person, place, business or keyword.

FamilySearch Full-Text Search main page.

So how does it all work? Let’s look at an example. Suppose we are researching the Sipple family of Tippecanoe County, Indiana.

We start by searching for the surname Sipple. We can either limit our search to Tippecanoe County from the beginning using the location field, or we can filter our results after we search. In this example, we’re going to use the filters.

Search results.

Full-Text Search gives us 62 results for people named Sipple in Tippecanoe County. Looking at the Record Type filter, we can see there are Legal Records, Vital Records, Business Records and Government Records. Each of those can be further filtered by subtype. For example Vital Records may include birth, marriage and death records, depending on the place you’re researching. You can also filter your results by decade using the Year filter and by FamilySearch collection using the Collection filter.

Tippecanoe County General Index of Deeds, Volume 135: 1849-1970.

Let’s look at this deed index from Tippecanoe County. For this county, FamilySearch has only the deed indexes. For other counties and places, they often have the full deed records as well. You may also find other text-heavy records such as wills, probates, court records and more.

The name we searched is highlighted on the page so we can see where the relevant record is. There’s also a transcription of the records on the right, with our search terms highlighted. As you can see, there’s some unclear transcriptions here. Because handwriting can be so highly variable, the transcriptions are not always perfect, but they are usually quite good.

Once we have looked at the record to make sure it’s what we want, we can download the record as a PDF or JPG and have citations automatically included. We can also attach the record to the relevant person on the FamilySearch Tree.

Search results for Smith in Knox County, Indiana at home.

Search results for Smith in Knox County, Indiana at the Indiana State Library.

One thing to note about Full-Text Search is that although FamilySearch is freely accessible at home, there may be records that you cannot access just anywhere. Due to contractual restrictions, some records are available only at FamilySearch Centers and FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries. Fortunately, the Indiana State Library is an Affiliate Library and we have access to thousands of additional records compared to at-home users. To find a FamilySearch Center or Affiliate Library near you, visit the Find a FamilySearch Location page.

The examples given here all cover Indiana, but Full-Text Search includes records from across the United States and around the world. Records that previously had to be accessed page-by-page are now fully searchable and ready for researchers to make new discoveries about their families.

This blog post is by Jamie Dunn, Genealogy Division supervisor.