Montana Digitizing in Acceleration Mode

There is an old Chinese proverb that states, “He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg."

Imagine if Noah had hesitated to build the ark until it started to rain, or if Moses had been reluctant to part the Red Sea with the Egyptians close behind him. These 2 examples show that sometimes in life, deliberation is not the best decision.

Diane Denney and the North West Museum of Kalispell

Diane Denney found herself in this position of deliberation. Her husband had recently passed, and Diane found her life on hold. What she really needed was to forget about herself and get busy. One day, out of the blue, Diane received a call from Rob Jackson, the FamilySearch North America Records Acquisitions Manager. He posed the following question: What do you think about digitizing for us?

Diane was surprised. Though she had no expertise in digitizing, what she did have was time and a willing heart. Diane hesitated for a mere moment.

Realizing this might be just what she needed and not wanting to delay, Diane found herself agreeing to Rob’s request. She had no idea how she would accomplish this new task.

A family history researcher herself, and understanding the benefit of having genealogical records digitized and searchable freely online for anyone to access, she was motivated by the challenge and happy to try to help in her local community.

Diane is a long-term resident of Kalispell, Montana. After one phone call with a FamilySearch employee to get her started, she was excited to move forward. Diane still had very little training and little to no camera expertise, but she did have ideas.

A Good Place to Start

While running errands, Diane drove past what is now the North West Museum in Kalispell. Thinking that might be a good place to start, she turned into the parking lot, just to see if they were open. The lights were on.

An employee was at the front desk, so Diane approached and nervously asked if she could make an appointment to meet with the museum director. She explained she wanted to see if the museum had any genealogically significant records that might need to be digitized.

The employee responded that Diane was in luck, because the director was downstairs. She was instructed to go down and ask him herself.

Surprised at how well it was going, Diane immediately went down the steps and asked the director the same question.

His first reaction to her question and offer was, "How much will it cost?" Upon discovering it would not cost him anything, the director was taken aback and quickly expressed his interest.

He emphasized the museum had no money to pay for digital preservation services—and that he would need to get permission—but that they definitely wanted to do it.

When permission finally came, Diane set up shop in the attic on the third floor of the North West Museum using equipment provided by FamilySearch. Through lots of trial and error, she taught herself how to edit and manage the metadata and began to go through thousands of records

The museum, once the first school in Kalispell, was filled with local high school yearbooks, historical area books, books with individual and family histories, and even newspapers dating back as far as the late 1800s.

The Sky's the Limit

The work that began in this small museum in Kalispell was just the beginning. Diane quickly discovered others in need of digitization, and soon found that she was surrounded in work and in need of help.

With all the historical records Diane had uncovered, it was essential to enlist more volunteers to gather and extract information. She ended up finding help from peers in her ward. Diane trained the new team herself, helping them set up regular shifts and organizing projects.

Diane Denney emphasized how digitizing was what she was supposed to experience in life and even what she needed to experience in life. She has no regrets of saying yes to that first call from FamilySearch and expressed a great love for the projects she's been a part of of!

To date, this Kalispell group has digitized over 1,500 books just in the Kalispell area and the surrounding small communities. Montana is proverbially on fire with digitizing!

The Rowleys Spread the Word

Richard and Vickie Rowley from Western Montana found that by spreading the word among people in the community and members of her church, they discovered many volunteers wanting to help with the work.

“Once you introduce people to FamilySearch and let them know what you are doing, they want to be involved," the Rowleys said.

"The more we talk about digitizing amongst friends and family and tell the life stories we are discovering, the more volunteers show up. Each new volunteer equates to more records.”

The volunteers have been using repository records found at cemeteries, churches, courthouses, high schools, historical societies, mortuaries, and even the Montana national guard office. Family history data can be found in school yearbooks, personal histories, death records, marriage records, and infant birth and death certificates.

Once the record custodians (school principals, archivists, managers, or bosses) find out that digitizing their records will be free, they will somehow find a way to get the permission for the project to be carried out.

Beyond Being "Just Records"

The Rowleys and their volunteers have even had success with Montanan tribal records. Tribal members often want to tell their stories and share the information they have. In Richard and Vickie’s area, a tribal member named Gene Felsman became interested in the genealogy for his tribe years ago.

Gene himself compiled tribal records from his area, made an index of the tribal census that covered up to 50 years of information, and found several genealogical family histories for tribal members. His work is now referred to as the Felsman project.

"Organization is important, and we have a church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) that is already organized for this work,” say the Rowleys. Richard and Vickie met with all the stake presidents (a leader over several local congregations of the Church) in their area and asked if their stakes would be interested in getting involved.

Richard and Vickie believed that the local priesthood leader was key to having success in their projects. They suggested to the stake presidents that each stake should assign a member of their congregation to be a record scout, who would help in finding and leading volunteers to identify and support local digitization projects.

The Church teaches that families are the basic unit of society and central to stronger communities. Members believe that the more you know about your ancestors, the stronger your personal and family legacy is, and that loving family relationships can continue after death.

The Small Connections

Digitization projects can be challenging, from trying to get access to records, finding enough volunteers, training teams, and accessing all the necessary equipment. It all takes coordination, time, and patience. Volunteers often say small connections make this work come together in a big way.

Identifying probable sources of genealogical records locally and who might have a personal connection (directly or indirectly) to the custodians of those records is key to success. Those small connections often took the form of reaching out, contacting, and involving and trusting others outside of the team.

For example, one volunteer was struggling to get approval for a project to digitize the historical records of a local Lutheran church because she didn't have the needed contacts. Then she realized that one of her coworkers attended that church.

With her coworker's help, this volunteer was able to have the plan presented to the minister and move forward with digitizing the church records.

This small connection not only helped get the digitization project approved, but it also inspired the coworker to continue to assist as a dedicated volunteer!

Be Part of the Movement

FamilySearch has been gathering and preserving records since 1894, but there is still a vast amount of records in our communities worldwide that need to be digitized. All too often, we tend to rely on census records alone to gather information about an ancestor, while there are so many other historical records that can add detail and quality to the story of someone's life.

You can be a part of this movement! Through small connections and selfless service, FamilySearch International volunteers in cities worldwide are digitizing and enabling access to billions of historical records. Your experience in a community and your unique connections with the people around you are qualifications enough for you to help digitally preserve records in your area.