Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash

Bruce County Public Library (BCPL) and Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre (BCM&CC) have added FamilySearch to their in-person resources after receiving Affiliate status. The FamilySearch Affiliate designation allows local library and museum patrons to access more genealogy records.

In a June 13, 2022 media release from Bruce County, FamilySearch is a non-profit, volunteer-driven genealogy organization, the largest of its kind worldwide. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help build this outstanding database, FamilySearch and its predecessors have actively gathered, preserved, and shared genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years.

FamilySearch has over 6 billion searchable names and 2 billion images of historical records. Adding over 300 million genealogical records and images annually, it is quickly becoming the world's top ancestry resource.

The Bruce County Genealogical Society, whose reference library is housed in the Research Room at the BCM&CC, has identified some of the historic record images now accessible at the BCM&CC and BCPL branches, which may be of particular interest to Bruce County residents, including Ontario Surrogate Court (Bruce County) Index of Probate Records, Early local church minute books for various Bruce County churches, German Catholic Parish Registers, and Scottish Parish Registers.

“This new resource will allow community members to make many fun, personal discoveries about their families through documents that recognize life events, like birth, baptism, marriage and death registrations, as well as census records,” said Glenys Johnson, President of the Bruce County Genealogical Society. “We are pleased that researchers visiting Bruce County’s public library branches, as well as the Genealogical Society’s Library in the museum’s Research Room, will be able to access this resource to discover more details about their families.”

Patrons of the Bruce County Museum or any of the Bruce County Library branches are encouraged to ask about FamilySearch during their visit for more information.