Nestled in the heart of the Harold B. Lee Library is the BYU Library Family History Center.
“The Family History Center at the BYU Library is one of the premiere family history centers in the world," Joe Everett, BYU's family history librarian, said.
With half a million rolls of microfilm images, shelves of biographies, one billion exclusive FamilySearch images and machines of every kind, the BYU Family History Center is also the second largest in the world.
For the volunteers and patrons, however, these collections are not the main thing that makes the center special.
“The best resource that we have is the people,” Everett said.
Elder James Tanner, a senior missionary for the center, shared that there are approximately 130 service missionaries who work there. Most work two days a week for a total of 10 hours.
Many missionaries know second languages. They also apply their individual career and study expertise to help patrons with their various projects.
“We rotate hour by hour through the desks, where one person handles the phone and the other person handles people zooming in,” Elder Steven Anderson said.
He and his wife have been working in the center since about 2015.
“The funnest part is helping people find their ancestors, and when they find them they're so excited — sometimes they'll actually jump up,” Anderson added.
For those who live outside of Utah or are unable to visit the library in person, there is also a virtual meeting option through the BYU Family History Center’s website. With this option, missionaries help people all over the world on a regular basis.
“When I walked in the door, they said, 'Somebody needs to talk to you,' and it turned out to be a girl from Chile,” Tanner said.
The center additionally offers significant resources to document memories of living family members.
“We have video, VHS, we have 8mm, we can do slides, we can do photographs, we can do books—you know, any type of thing you bring in,” Tanner said.
There are also many resources available to find those who have passed on.
“It’s amazing how many biographies and autobiographies you can find, and find hundreds and thousands of relatives,” Anderson said.
Everett added that the BYU Library Family History Center combines the vast resources of the BYU Library, a leading academic library, with the resources of FamilySearch, as a FamilySearch affiliate library.
“We have access to a lot of academic databases, primary source databases, journal databases that also have relevance to family history,” Everett said. “We have access to premium content on FamilySearch. It’s a free resource, however, of the over 5 billion images available. About a quarter of them or somewhat over a billion are not accessible at home due to contractual restrictions. But you can access them here.”
All of these resources are available, free of charge, to patrons and “are used with you supplying the work,” Anderson said.
These resources draw in many local community members. Combined with collaborative events, the library has also started to draw in more students in recent years.
“Our main effort here is to help support the students, and we have family home evening groups that come in and we have all sorts of things,” Tanner said.
Everett and Tanner also noted that an increasing number of general education or other classes, like the new University 101 class, are including family history in their curriculum. This helps students come and engage with the BYU Library while discovering their family history, which they may not have done otherwise.
“We work with professors to find ways that family history can connect to things that they're already teaching and deepen family history engagement,” Everett said. “It could just be one small assignment.”
Everett added that missionary volunteers, particularly Sister Pat Esplin, a retired BYU professor, have been instrumental in furthering campus outreach efforts in addition to the personalized family history help they provide for students.
Rulon Frandsen, a BYU student who works at the front desk of the center, said that he learned almost everything from volunteers there.
“Every student can find someone in their family — whether it’s a living or deceased family member — who inspires them,” Everett said.
Even with the academic benefits, Tanner shared that the center serves much more than just an academic purpose.
“The most important thing is understanding the connection between this and the goal of the Church to gather Israel on both sides of the veil,” Tanner said.
“There are so many prophetic promises as young people, especially, get involved from helping gather Israel, and those blessings are there for every BYU student to enjoy and to experience,” Everett said. “It will strengthen them, it will enable them to succeed, it will bless their lives with protection from the adversary, it will bless their lives with resilience and increased love for their family, love for the Savior.”
He added that this is part of the BYU Library Family History Center’s mission at large.
“Part of our objective in the Family History Center is to extend that opportunity to every BYU student, so the BYU experience could include—at least in some small way—a family history and temple experience,” Everett said.