If you are an indexer, you have probably wondered just how effective your work really is. Do people actually search the records you index? I had the answer to that question recently when I received an email informing me that someone I had indexed from the 1940 U.S. Census records, John Kostelac, had been added to Family Tree. In fact, of the 906 names I indexed from that 1940 census, 168 people had been added to family trees and 936 ordinances have been reserved.

Thousands of volunteers helped to index the 1940 U.S census in 2012 with over 132 million records indexed. I was able to sign in to FamilySearch and actually see some of the individuals whose records I indexed.

But my efforts were just a small part compared to all of the work accomplished in FamilySearch this past year.  FamilySearch just released their numbers for 2017 and it’s amazing to see what has been achieved. A total of 22.7 million photos and stories were added this past year to FamilySearch. 1.2 billion people are now in the Tree. This was accomplished with 4.42 million contributors, with 1.8 million of those as new contributors this year. 844 million sources were added, with 149 million new. What about hints? There were 2.5 billion hints with 450 million new ones.

There are now 5.9 billion total searchable records online. Indexing has seen 4.2 billion records indexed, with 283 million new records in 2017. All these records translate into 320,807 indexing volunteers and 8,286,403 total volunteer indexing hours!!   –Liz Kennington