By Nathan Walch
Charles C. Rich had six wives and 51 children. Today, he has an estimated 250,000 descendants, including some BYU students, scattered throughout Utah.
Last month, BYU Studies released the Charles C. Rich DVD Library, documenting this early Utah settler?s life with copies of original documents, biographies, family histories and photographs.
?The Charles Rich digital library contains so much data that it would have taken four CDs to contain it all,? said John Welch, BYU Studies editor in chief. ?Having thousands of pages of high resolution scans of dairies, letters, books and photographs on a single DVD allows the entire library to be interlinked at one time.?
The documents and pictures are linked in an interactive chronology, giving a detailed view of Rich?s life, including his role in colonizing the western United States. He settled San Bernardino, Calif., and Bear Lake Valley in northern Utah.
The DVD also includes firsthand accounts by Rich?s wives, detailing their thoughts and experiences with polygamy.
?We do not stand in need of any interference on our behalf,? wrote Sarah Rich, Charles Rich?s first wife. ?We are not held in bondage, [and] we are as free as it is possible to be.?
With this new technology, descendants and researchers can gain a personal perspective of their ancestors.
?For years we have been wanting to have available to the Charles C. Rich family members documents that were found only in the archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,? said Carol Hirschi, Charles C. Rich Family Association council member. ?I am especially excited about having at my fingertips all known speeches given by my great-grandfather.?
BYU Studies administrators created this DVD in an effort to make this information more accessible to as many people as possible.
?It would take centuries for the descendants of Charles C. Rich to see all these documents, one at a time, at the church archives,? Welch said. ?We hoped to create a prototype of a new way to produce a biography.?
Students can produce similar histories for their own ancestors.
?This DVD provides a model for other digitalized biographies or family histories,? Welch said. ?Gathering all the images, writing the framework chronology and building the system requires lots of work, but it is fun work that the whole family will appreciate.?
BYU has several resources to help those who feel nervous about starting on such a consuming task.
?I would suggest that students go to the Family History Center or one of the family history labs on campus,? said Cynthia Doxey, a BYU family history professor. ?There are many people who can help students get started, and you don?t have to know everything before you go.?
The family history labs are currently located in 102 JSB and 335 KMB, but these labs will be combined into the Joseph F. Smith Building at the end of the semester. The Utah Valley Regional Family History Center is also available to students on the second floor of the Harold B. Lee Library.
?One of the important things we should do is try to keep our own histories,? Doxey said. ?Writing in a journal, labeling photos, putting documents in safe places and generally keeping things together makes it possible for future family historians to find information about ourselves.?
The Charles C. Rich DVD Library is available at byustudies.byu.edu and at the BYU Bookstore.
