The LDS church is actively collecting all kinds of public and private records from around the world, and making them available to the public through their Family History Centers. The one in Caribou is open to the public, but since volunteers staff it, it may not always be open when the schedule predicts. You can call a day or two before your visit to be more certain (492-4381).
The LDS church has a huge library in Salt Lake City that also houses my personal favorite resource, microfilm. Microfilm is a photographic copy of printed material. It comes on reels of what looks like long rolls of negatives. A special machine called a “microfilm reader” projects the image onto a screen. (You can also print out a record once you find it.) The church has copied many town, county, and state records, including vital records, land records, wills, and censuses as well as private, religious, and other records.
For example, my Italian grandmother came from a town so small it wasn’t even on my first map of Italy. But a search of the LDS microfilm catalog showed copies of the town’s vital records back to the late 1700s and then Catholic Church records going back another 200 years. Amazing!
For about $5 each, I can have any of those films sent from Salt Lake to the LDS Family History Center in Bangor to “read” for three weeks. (The films have to stay at the Family History Center.) Most foreign records are in the native language, but the LDS church has prepared pamphlets with foreign words most likely needed in genealogical research. So, even though my sisters and I can’t read Italian, we have been able to search these microfilms and find our family’s records. For American records, the three-week rental is usually enough. However, for the foreign records we usually pay the extra $10 to keep the microfilm in Bangor indefinitely to access them whenever we’ve had the time to spare.
Microfilm used to intimidate me when I first looked at the machines, but the staff are helpful and it is very easy to do. I encourage you to try it. LDS resources and microfilm (if they exist for your area of research) are a great asset. (If you have access to the internet, go to www.familysearch.org, hover over the library tab and a drop-down menu will offer “Library catalog”. At the next menu, I usually choose a “Place Name” search. Or visit the Family History Center in Caribou or Bangor, and they will help you find pertinent records.
Don’t forget you can always e-mail me with your questions or success stories. I love to hear from you.
Editor’s note: This regular column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society. The group meets the fourth Monday of the month except in June and December at the Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center, 163 Van Buren Road, Caribou, at 6:30 p.m. Guests and prospective members are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501. Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft has been doing genealogy for over 30 years, is a freelance genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com.
