Genealogy/LDS
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has many, many resources on Genealogy, in fact they are one of the leading forefronts on Genealogy, because of their belief in proxy postmortem baptism and ordinances. Either way, they are extremly helpful resource for the Genealogical community at large, and almost every geneologist has come in contact with a member of the church one way or another.
[edit] PAF - Personal Ancestrial File
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) has written up its own computer program for organization of genealogical records, and can be pretty powerful when you start using it. It has support for GEDCOM files, it can also print out family trees, and has a lot of information fields.
to be written: usage guide, etc.
[edit] FamilySearch.Net
[FamilySearch.Net] domain was donated from an individual (refusing a particularly large sum of money from a private intrest) to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). The database of records on this site is derived from the Ancestral File project of the LDS Family History Department. This started as a collection of "4-generation" geneological submissions from members of the LDS Church, but has grown substnatially since the early 1980's when this project originally started. Many geneology archivists and Family History Library patrons have contributed data to this collection. The total number of individuals listed in this database numbers in the millions.
The quality of the information varies quite a bit with this database, as both professionals and amateurs have participated in the submission of data. For some individuals the data is incredibly well documented, and links to original records can be obtained. Others the data is obviously mis-entered with incorrect genders and having the same child listed 4 or 5 times, or other obvious errors. Another problem with this database was the method used to match up comparable records, which was done "automagically", or in other words, through a completely automated process. When matching individuals with substantial amounts of accurate information (full birth date, place information, death dates, etc.), this works fairly smoothly, but you can sometimes spot when a line moves from one submission to another and has been matched together.
The worst situations occur when there is a "flame war" going on between different branches of a family arguing over what the correct information should be on a common ancestor. To the credit of the Family History Library, there is a dispute resolution procedure to try and clean up messes of this nature, but it does require formal documentation in the form of birth certificates, wills, etc. that are not normally required for ordinary submissions.
If you spot errors, there are procedures to try and clean up the database, but it is somewhat bureaucratic to get through. It is still worth doing if you are cleaning up your own family lines.
You can easily access this website and search its large database of records, and even download some of it as a GEDCOM for inclusion in whatever genealogy software you prefer that supports the GEDCOM format (it's the de facto exchange format between genealogy programs)
to be written: exploring the site, etc.
The text in its current form is incomplete.
