New Cd-Rom Databases Offered

The British Isles Vital Records Index and North America Vital Records Index are the two latest CD-ROM databases offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Imagine having a database of 10 million names to search right at home on your own computer.

The North America Vital Records Index lists nearly 5 million names taken from church and civil records and from other collections in the United States and Canada. Items in this seven-CD set focus on marriage records (six discs) but includes a disc of births and christenings gathered from church, civil and parish records.

The indexed North American records date from 1620 to 1888 and will be updated periodically as more information becomes available, adding millions of new names with each future volume.

The British Vital Records Index contains nearly 5 million names from parish registers, civil registrations and other records collections in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

The records span more than three centuries, from 1538 to 1888. The five CDs in this set concentrate on birth and christening records (four discs) but also includes one disc of marriages. The amount of accessible data can vary greatly from parish to parish.

This vital records index also will be an ongoing project with periodic updates.

Any reasonable genealogist must realize there is no promise accompanying these discs that your ancestor is definitely on them, or that their parish is even there, for that matter.

Any logical genealogist will also realize that even with the astounding figure of 10 million names, this number falls realistically short of all the souls who ever lived in these places.

But, as with any database of information, if your long-sought-for ancestor is found within the millions of names, you are a happy camper.

The discs do come with the promise, however, that for a relatively small price, you can have a large database of information to study for all your names - in your own home at your leisure.

These new CDs may save families hundreds of hours of time and painstaking research, said Elder D. Todd Christofferson, executive director of the LDS Family History Department.

The process is as simple as typing in a name. But this is only the beginning of what’s to come. The church is aggressively working toward developing other products that will simplify genealogical research, making it faster and easier to access needed information and trace family histories.

System requirements for these discs are a Pentium processor, Windows 95 or NT4.0+, 8 MB RAM (16 MB is recommended), a CD-ROM drive, VGA monitor with 256-color, and 25 MB hard disk space.

The five-CD set of British Vital Records Index costs $15. The North American Vital Records Index, a sevenCD set, is priced at $19. They may be ordered from the Church Distribution Center, 1999 West 1700 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104-4322, or by calling (800) 537-5950.