Pando, also known as “The Trembling Giant,” is an estimated 80,000 years old and is the heaviest organism on earth.[1] Wow!
Wait! Who or what is Pando?
Pando, Latin for “I spread,” is a massive stand of male quaking aspens in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. As it turns out, Pando’s many Aspens all sprout from one historic root system. This unified root system fuels the growth, life, and expansion of over 100 acres of land! Because of Pando’s foundation, it has survived nearly 600 wildfires and contains 47,000 trunks.[2] Interestingly, although Pando has quietly grown for thousands of years, its root system was not discovered until 1970.
Around the time Pando was discovered, FamilySearch’s “Pando” experience began. For nearly 40 years the indexing community quietly grew in one form or another.[3] Because of that growth, volunteers were recently able to produce 132 million searchable 1940 US Census records in less than 6 months. That’s as many records as Facebook has users,[4] American Idol has voters,[5] and Calvin Johnson has dollars (assuming he keeps catching those footballs)![6]
The 1940 US Census proved that we are not individual contributors at all—we are a unified system that supplies the “underground” foundation for finding and connecting generations. Indexing volunteers are the fuel for the growth, life, and expansion of genealogy.
Because we have worked as a community, more than 860 million records from more than 80 countries are now searchable online.
On July 2 we got a glimpse of the potential power of this human “Pando.” On that day over 46,000 indexers and arbitrators submitted more than 10.3 million names.[7] What an accomplishment! What a movement!
Doesn’t it make you wonder what else we can accomplish together? Stay tuned. Soon we’ll be tackling an even bigger challenge as the “Community Project” rolls into its next phase: the opportunity to index the immigration and naturalization records of our ancestors.
So stick around. The best is yet to come, and you’re all going to be part of it!
This article was written by Jessie Davis.
References:
- The Quantum Biologist, "The Trembling Giant," (2010), http://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/the-trembling-giant/
- The Quantum Biologist, "The Trembling Giant," (2010), http://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/the-trembling-giant/
- Indexing is a digital version of an extraction program that started in the 1970s.
- Amcham Vietnam, "Computing Tips: Facebook No. 1 Globally with 132 Million Users," (n.d.), https://www.amchamvietnam.com/
- MasterclassLady.Com, "Phillip Phillips Wins American Idol. 132 Million Votes Don’t Lie,” (2012), http://masterclasslady.com/2012/05/24/phillip-phillips-wins-american-idol-132-million-votes-dont-lie/
- Calvin Johnson is the highest paid NFL wide receiver in history. (Michael David Smith, "Calvin Johnson Gets 7 Years, $132 Million, $60 Million guaranteed." (2012),http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com /2012/03/14/calvin-johnson-gets-seven-years-132-million-60-million-guaranteed/)
- "Indexers Leave a Legacy in Record Breaking Event," (2012), https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/familysearch-indexers-leave-a-legacy-in-a-record-setting-event
