THE MICROFILMING PROGRAM OF THE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, SALT LAKE CITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140002-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2006
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 5, 1969
• Content Type: PAPER

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WORLD CONFERENCE
ON RECORDS
AND GENEALOGICAL SEMINAR
Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.
5-8 August 1969
THE MICROFILMING PROGRAM OF THE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY,
SALT LAKE CITY
By
"Record Protection in
an Uncertain World"
nAn GENERAL ASSEMBLIES
COPYRIGHT? f9RRHEG#4A[0fYCAL Ct~TYOF'T1~~t19CR OF7P30~'CI4RIS~ Q~7#R~AI^SXHV~9!4TK 0002-7
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THE MICROFILMING PROGRAM OF THE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY,
SALT LAKE CITY
By
Elder Howard W. Hunter
It is indeed an honor to address this great audience. You
represent not only many nations in the world at this conference, but
somehow it seems you represent all mankind, as we come together to discuss
the records and the cultures of the world which have been preserved in
written form. When we discuss records, in reality we are talking about
people, for records are histories and stories of people and their acts
in life.
Another reason for feeling honored is that in this capacity,
I represent the largest genealogical library in the world located here
in Salt Lake City. The Genealogical Society Library is truly a marvelous
collection of records from every part of the world. These records are
being preserved and indexed as rapidly as time and opportunity will
allow so that they can be made available to every person who has reason
to search them.
The Genealogical Society was organized seventy-five years
ago this very year. I have often wondered if those who had the foresight
and vision to incorporate this organization were given the privilege
of understanding how far-reaching and effective this Society would become.
I quote from the recorded minutes of the first meeting on November 13,1894.
"We the undersigned do hereby associate ourselves together in an organi-
zation to be known by the name and style of 'The Genealogical Society
of Utah' the purposes of which are benevolent, educational and religious,
pecuniary profit not being the object." Further on in the same minutes
we read an explanation of what was meant by benevolent. Again I quote,
"..benevolent in collecting, compiling, establishing and maintaining
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a genealogical Ali rary or t e use and ene it o i hers
For the seventy-five years of its existence, this goal and objective
has always been uppermost in the minds of those who have been in the
leadership of the Genealogical Society. The goal has not changed, it
constitutes one of the primary reasons for the purpose of this World
Conference on Records.
Many years ago we realized that it would not be possible to
gather all the records of the world into any one given place because of
the number and the various ways records have been and are being preserved.
Even though we are literally brothers and sisters in the fullest sense
of the word, yet we are aware that there are cultures, nationalities,
clans, and ethnic units which possess intense loyalty to their own
group and way of life. The records of the world must be preserved --
but preserved in these lines of demarkation.
In the beginning, the work of the Society was slow and the
organization moved with some degree of deliberation. It had only a
small number of books and they, in most cases, had been donated. A
Mr. John Howard presented to the library books such as "Records of
the Revolutionary War," "List of Emigrants to America." and "Visitation
of Yorkshire." Progress was slow, but from this humble beginning we
have been able to collect, during the seventy-five years of our
existence, over 80,000 bound volumes.
Books have constituted the principal means of preserving
records and we began to look at ways to preserve them so that they
could be read and used without destroying the original to the point
that it would become unusable. In 1937 we investigated a program of
microfiling. We could see where storage space would be reduced and
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destruction of the original records would be eliminated. After long
and exhaustive studies and experiments in the use of microfilm, the
Genealogical Society began to accept microfilm as an answer to the
problem of storing and preserving the available world's records.
Actually, the program began by our purchasing a few rolls of
developed microfilm. We could see the advantages of such a program.
But merely buying a few rolls of film was not the answer. We needed
to place some kind of priority on the gathering of records. We gave
our highest priority to the accumulation of vital records which were
most useful to us in Genealogical research. After many studies, it
was finally decided that the Genealogical Society should go into the
field with its own cameras seeking permission to microfilm available
records. What commenced as a small operation soon blossomed and grew
and has developed into what has been described as the most concentrated
microfilming program ever attempted by an organization.
Because of the cooperation of people and organization all
over the world, many of those in attendance here today being chiefly
responsible, we have been able to microfilm and preserve some of the
vital records of many countries in the world. The Society has often
been asked to supply a reprint of some of the records we have photo-
graphed because the original was destroyed by fire or flood or the
ravages of time after being photographed, and we have been able to
respond to the request.
We are aware of the fact that all of the world's records
could not be microfilmed and placed in our large storage vaults for safe
keeping and preservation. We do however urge all of those present
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to give serious consideration to solving the problem of preserving
and storing your own vital records. By such cooperation, and perhaps
the exchange of information, the vital records of the world can be
preserved in safety and so made available for use.
Here in our Genealogical Library we have placed positive
copies of many of the films we have secured. We have made available
about 250 reading machines without charge to anyone desiring to use
them so that films may be studied and genealogies assembled. We know
that some records we have been privileged to gather should not be used
in public areas, and we have jealously guarded these according to the
directions we have received from the owners or guardians of such
records. However, those we have microfilmed for the most part are
records available to the public and could be used by the public in the
repository of the original record. Hundreds of people come to our
library and use these microfilmed records daily in their search for
information.
Let me explain how we are permitted to microfilm records. In
some cases the owners have requested that we photograph their records
and in other cases we have requested permission from the owners to
microfilm. Many historians and records officers have seen the value
of having the Genealogical Society come to the place where the original
records are stored for the purpose of microfilming them for preservation
and future use. Whenever we have been invited to do this work, we have
always left the original record in the possession of the owner and in
many cases in better order than before we filmed it. We always give
to the owner one complete microfilmed copy. This permits the owner to
use the microfilmed copy instead of the original record, thus preserving
the original. As to the records which we have requested permission
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to copy, it is our policy to enter into a microfilm contract with the
owners so that all conditions are thoroughly understood before microfilming
begins. In this case, too, we have given the owners a complete set of
microfilm copies of the original records.
Microfilming has been done in many countries in the world and
sometimes under some unusual circumstances. For instance, in one country
we carried records by burros to places where electricity would be available,
and in some places we have had to provide our own power by portable power
plants. These are extreme cases, but demonstrate our earnestness in
securing and preserving the records of the world. This work is not ex-
perimentation for the Genealogical Society, but a full-fledged part of
the effort to build and establish a records program for the preservation
of important documents and records.
To demonstrate the validity of this statement, permit me to
quickly present for your consideration the extent of the program at
the present time. We are now filming in about 17 countries in the
world and producing approximately 400,000 feet or 122,000 meters of
microfilm every month. Translated into figures which can be easily
understood, it would be something like this: During 1968 we produced
nearly 18,000,000 feet or 6,000,000 meters of microfilm and continuing
on into-1969 we will produce about 24,000,000 feet or 8,000,000 meters
of microfilm records including the duplicate copies.
These records are from the United States, Mexico, Denmark,
Sweden, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium,
Finland, Norway, Canada, Hungary, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland,
Austria, Russia, Iceland, Argentina, BahamamsPolynesia, Italy, Poland,
and a few records from China, Japan, South America, South Africa and
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We would be grateful if we could report that we have many
rolls of microfilmed records from all the countries of the world, but
unfortunately, we cannot. We do believe, however, that by cooperation
among all the countries represented here today we could establish an
understanding and arrangement whereby the vital statistical records
of every country in the world could be preserved and used by those who
have reason to use them. We stand ready to share and aid in every
way possible to preserve and make available for use the records of
every country in the world.
One of the questions most frequently asked of us is why we
are so interested in the records of the world, and why we spend so much
time and money gathering and placing them in special libraries and
protective structures. People have come from every part of the world
just to see how we do this and to ask about the reason for our program.
suppose it does seem unusual for an organization to be so interested
in other countrieA records and that it will spend its own money to
try and preserve the vital documents. But this is a true statement of
fact -- we do want to help preserve records.
Perhaps if we were to consider the case of records in their
true light we might be led to draw heavily on past experience. Records
have been the focal point of every history book that has ever been
compiled. History books are not written in the sense that they are
created or brought from someone's mind. They are basically a
compilation of the written records of a country or the records of
individuals within the space of time for which the history is
written.
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In common usage, the term History refers to the record of
the events of man rather than the events themselves. History may
be regarded as a record of all that has occurred within the realm of
human consciousness. Sometimes the term Prehistoric is used to
describe the events of the distant past, but this is not an accurate
term unless used to designate that vague and hypothetical period of
development of which we have no positive record but only information
revealed by legend and archaeological rather than literary evidence.
Egypt is regarded as an archaeological museum. There has
been preserved to this day some historical information in the form of
architecture, art, remains of engineering feats, inscriptions on
buildings, tombs and monuments, but there are very few Egyptian historical
writings. The Babylonians and the Assyrians made a greater contribution
by the clay tablets, cylinders and the inscriptions giving the names
of the kings and their genealogies. The Code of Hammurabi is one of
the most important documents in the history of jurisprudence. In
ancient Palestine the Hebrews produced the first true historical
narrative of any consequence and this was expanded under Saul, David
and Solomon. Historical writing was increased under the Greeks and
the Romans. Then followed the Patristic period and the Middle Ages
and so on down to modern times. Civilizations have come and gone, but
history is limited to the fragments which have been preserved. We must
find a way to preserve the written records of mankind.
One reason for our attempt to preserve the vital records
of mankind is because we believe that we should learn of "things both
in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have
been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things
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which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and perplexities
of the nations, and the judgements which are on the land; and a
knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms." (D&C 88:79) It would
appear that the reason for constant mistrust and misunderstanding among
nations is that the boundary lines of countries have blinded us to the
extent that we have forgotten that each person who lives upon the earth
has something in common with another. The Genealogical Society has
always fostered the idea that wars would become unheard of, men would
beat their swords into plowshares and the earth could easily become
a delightful garden for all men if we could only learn enough about
each other and something about our origin to understand and appreciate
one another.
Another prominent reason for the Genealogical Society to
devote its efforts toward the gathering and preserving of mankind's
records is the literal belief that men were created by a beneficient
Father whose purpose was to create man that he might have joy. The
joy we speak of is the joy of family association. With this in mind
we seek out our family lines so we may know who our ancestors and
family members are. Thus the work goes on until we have identified
all our people as far back as records are available. It is not un-
common for a person who is in America to search out his ancestry and
find that he has ancestral parents in many, many countries of the
world. With the expansion of commerce and representatives of
businesses living in many parts of the world, marrying and intermarrying
with the people within the country where they live, it would be by no
means improbable that future generations of citizens yet unborn in the
nations of this world would be a composite of many lineages.
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Now, let us discuss for just a few moments what we might
consider to be the future of this work and some realistic goals we might
reach together. I am confident that the librarians, historians, archivists,
genealogists government and private record supervisors here assembled
feel that records should be preserved and stored in such a manner that
they can be used for research. We could resolve this very day to
assist in establishing a real program of record preservation and storage.
There are many ways this can be done, but each country and area would,
of course, have to decide how it should be done for its particular purposes.
It is not necessary that there be uniformity in the way records are kept,
but only that they are kept safe and secure. No doubt in the future
there will be better ways to do this than at present. At this time
we are using computers to index and print out information; but we
have not discovered any method that will copy and preserve records
better than microfilm. As we progress, we are learning how to store
and preserve the negative microfilm copy so that it will last hundreds
of years.
If we were all to cooperate and exchange ideas one with
another, we could no doubt develop various ways for preserving our
records and exchanging them if the need arose so that every person
would have access to them. Perhaps it would be well if we were to
organize some world committee which could guide us in performing
this task. The Genealogical Society would be happy to cooperate
in a yearly meeting of some kind to accomplish this purpose.
The committee should be a non-profit organization and would require
no great expense. With governments, organizations, libraries, and
other such groups working together we could devise ways to preserve
our cultures by preserving our records.
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The Genealogical Society desires to microfilm many records
from various countries in the world, especially where large numbers
of American people have come from. We in America are all natives of
some other country either by birth or by descent, therefore, the vital
records of our ancestors are found in records within the countries you
people represent.
As you have already learned, we have a large records vault
just south and a little east of the City where we have fashioned out
of a granite mountain, vaults where we can preserve microfilmed records
in such a way as to insure their safety. We desire to cooperate with
countries in using this method of preserving records for the use and
benefit of posterity.
Again, we are grateful that you have accepted our invitation
to attend this most significant conference on records and we deeply
appreciate your help and guidance in such a humane duty as preserving
and maintaining the records of man's civilization.
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