News Release

One Million Names Indexed

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Northampton, Northamptonshire, area have continued their commitment to index  names after reaching an impressive milestone of 1,000,000 names. This landmark achievement was celebrated with a special evening discussing the importance of temples and family history work.

Presenting at the celebratory event were David and Carol Cottrell, area family history advisors for the London Temple district, who emphasized the need for members to get involved with family history work. David shared the story of his own conversion to the Church in the mid 1960s, saying he has been converted to temple and family history work ever since.

Stephen Hough, a recent recruit to the indexing team who is indexing World War I records, said, “It has been sobering, humbling, fascinating and often quite emotional to participate in indexing the records of those souls who served their country in what was known then as the Great War (the war to end all wars) but which we now know sadly as the First World War.  When I had completed the records for one hundred soldiers I saw a company of Tommies who could be searched for and found, so my next goal is to index the records for a whole battalion.”  

Indexing is the transferring of written public records to accessible, online databases that make searching for genealogical information much more convenient. Indexers use documents such as handwritten birth, marriage and death records to create an electronic report for a deceased person. This electronic report enables those doing genealogy to search for facts about their ancestors with more ease.

These indexed public records are available worldwide through Family Search website. FamilySearch.org is one of the most used genealogy Web sites and offers the public free access to its resources and services.

To find out more about indexing and how to register and get involved, visit FamilySearch.org.

Additional Resources

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