Jeff Svare has loved his 37-year career with FamilySearch. An accredited genealogist, he has worked with FamilySearch for so long because, in short, “it’s been worth it,” he said. “I wanted to get in on this [profession] because this is where I can make a contribution. I want to do something that will have some lasting consequence and value. And I think [it] has.”
Jeff’s duties are currently split between serving as an expert on the FamilySearch Nordic research team and as deputy chief genealogical officer.
Nordic Research Team
Jeff has years of experience with Nordic research—both in his own family records and in assisting others. The term “Nordic” includes Scandinavian records (of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), and it also includes records of Finland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. The Nordic team provides expert research assistance by teaching classes, giving 1-on-1 research assistance to library patrons, and providing online consultations and other related services.
Svare’s Work on the Valuable FamilySearch Research Wiki
Until just recently, Jeff worked on the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Jeff said that his favorite thing about that job was simply the records: “I love working with records. I love finding out new things. I love being able to go and dig into the backgrounds of some of these records—why they were created—to better understand how they can be used. I learned lots of neat stuff working on the wiki. My kids joke that to me knowledge is the most important thing. That’s not wrong.”
Jeff’s love of learning fueled his work on the FamilySearch Research Wiki. The wiki is a powerful aid to family history research. It contains background information on records and topics, research guidance, tips, and links to useful records. Svare has been part of a highly skilled and dedicated team that creates and organizes the wiki.
As a wiki content manager, he worked with content that described historical records collections. When FamilySearch publishes a new collection, the team gets notice of it, including a general description of the records that are in the collection. The team then analyzes the collection and provides a more detailed description, links to related content, and guidelines to help people use it effectively.
It's a big job for a small wiki team—analyzing and providing a standardized description of all the 3,400 collections published on the FamilySearch website. The team developed a template that provides a consistent guide to the thousands of wiki topic pages. With this template, patrons can find the various subtopics in the same place from page to page and can locate what they need more easily. The regular subtopics in the template include research tips, research strategies, different record types, and standard research tools.
From Changing Toner in the Copier to Acquiring International Records, Svare Has Done It All
Through his decades at FamilySearch, Svare has worked in many departments, done myriad jobs, and traveled overseas to help with records acquisitions. Currently, as deputy chief genealogical officer, he advocates for high standards of professionalism in research and for creating quality genealogical products. Those standards have evolved as he has worked in many aspects of records acquisition and organization.
After obtaining a degree in history, he landed a job at the Family History Library (now the FamilySearch Library) as a library attendant, shelving films and books and changing copier toner. Through the years he has worked in many capacities that gave him experience valuable to his current wiki work.
He worked in the collection development unit, which approved book purchases and microfilming. As a bibliographic search specialist, he checked if the library already had the suggested items. Through that assignment, he says, he developed a thorough knowledge of the catalog.
In 1991, he was asked to work as an acquisition control analyst for the Asia and Pacific research areas, solving challenges with supplies, passing along information, setting up training schedules, and collaborating with leaders in Asia. The job later included Africa and Europe, involving opportunities to visit many countries.
Just before the 2002 Olympics, which were held in Utah, Svare worked with library public affairs on special projects and greeting guests. After the Olympics, he worked as a library training coordinator and then moved back to collection operations.
Obtaining collections “had a different flavor,” he explains. He oversaw all acquisitions for Nordic countries, where he visited archives and examined records. The work was fascinating, and he made friendships that still continue. “I loved working with those people and records,” Jeff says.
His acquisitions and collections work led naturally to his service on the wiki team. In addition to his online work with the research wiki, Jeff has authored articles on the techniques and guidelines he has created there, to help people use the records better.
Jeff’s Path from a Family Reunion to the Family History Library
Jeff’s interest in genealogy was piqued at an early age, but it didn’t lead him in a straight line to the FamilySearch Library. Born and raised in Minnesota and North Dakota, Svare is of German and Norwegian ancestry. (“Svare” is pronounced with the s and v as one sound, and a long e voiced at the end. The name is hard for Americans to pronounce, Jeff jokes.) He was exposed to genealogy when he was between 6 and 8 years old, while at a family reunion at his aunt and uncle’s house on Tamarack Lake, Minnesota, United States. He remembered it because “a lady came up to my grandaunt,” he said, “and she introduced her to me. The lady responded, ‘Oh you’re my something-cousin-once-removed,’” he recalled. He was a little puzzled by her description of the relationship.
Although he remembered the encounter years later, that wasn’t what drew him into his 37-year career at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. “I found out early on in my academic career in college that I was rubbish at organic chemistry,” he explained. “I gave serious thought to the hard sciences like physics, astronomy, marine microbiology, paleontology, or astronomy.”
As he considered his options, he read something in the newspaper about Prince Charles’s history degree. “Well, maybe that’s not a bad idea,” he thought. And then he received a brochure from Brigham Young University with a “whole bunch” of history courses in it. “OK, somebody’s telling me something,” he thought. “I ended up with a degree in history. I’ve always loved history, and I have a soft spot in my heart for British naval history.”
Jeff observed that through his job and doing his own family history, he has “learned a lot about life and crazy stuff.” For example, he said, “One belief that shattered after research was that during the winters in Nordic countries, everyone stayed put. But I found ancestors in the 1500s who, to attend a court case, went from the Gudbrandsdalen Valley highlands of Norway to Copenhagen [a distance of 467 miles, or 752 kilometers]. They went back home in December. They were not all hunkered down in the house at all. I found a document that showed that they had been in Copenhagen. A person learns lots of cool things about their families by doing research.”
In another foray into his family’s past, he discovered ancestors who converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the mid-1700s. One such family had “a mess of kids,” several of whom died. After the father died, the mother and all the children packed up and left for the United States. Eventually, all but one ended up in Minnesota, with the other settling in Ohio.
Off the job, Jeff has a wide range of interests. He likes making bread of all kinds. “It’s my stress relief,” he said. He is the proud current owner of the oldest Star Trek mailing list on the internet and has managed it for nearly 30 years. He has recruited other list owners to collaborate with him. He has always loved reading to his children and grandchildren, who, in turn, have developed their own love of reading.
Helping One Person, One Family, at a Time
You might find Jeff at work once a month doing a reference shift on the international floor of the library, where he can help guests with their Nordic research.
A shift last fall was one of the best he ever had, he said. While helping a woman look for records, he was able to show her how to keep a calendar of her findings and organize her notes to research more effectively. Together, they found a family group that looked like it could be her family, but more research showed that it wasn’t. Undeterred, they identified it as a family group that was not in the tree and added it to help somebody else. Jeff helped her read Nordic records and explained how they worked. With those skills, she found a useful record and did the work to put the generations together.
Life-changing encounters such as that, in addition to shaping accessible records and guidance on the wiki, keep Jeff Svare enthusiastic and engaged at the FamilySearch Library. And it is Jeff Svare, and others like him, who keep people coming enthusiastically to the library.
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