Get Involved
Try this activity to help make a difference for researchers around the world.
What is indexing?
Indexing is a volunteer project that makes images of historical records—like census returns or obituaries—searchable online. It’s a great way to give back to the genealogy community and make family discoveries possible.
How it works
An unindexed image of a historical record cannot be found in a search. There are no key words associated with it to be found.
A volunteer indexer looks at the record in the indexing program and types in the important information, like names, dates, and places. The resulting indexed image is added to the searchable records available for free on FamilySearch.
Indexing is sponsored and hosted by FamilySearch, a service provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Try it
Visit the Indexing homepage to sign in to FamilySearch and select a “batch” of images to index. There are projects available in many different languages. Spend as much or as little time as you have. There are help resources integrated in the system to answer questions.