Riffling through family history archives of the Friesland province in the Netherlands during the spring of 2006, senior Camille Buma searched long and hard for her ancestors.

Buma knew she had to be there. Something told her miraculous things would happen in this country. Soon enough, Buma discovered thousands of names in her ancestral line, which testified the truth of her feelings.

"In family history, as long as you try to do your part and make an effort, doors will open," Buma said. "It strengthened my testimony of family history and has drawn out my heart toward my family beyond the veil and here on Earth."

Buma is one of the many students involved in the Immigrant Ancestors Project (IAP), the flagship program sponsored by the BYU Center for Family History and Genealogy. This project locates the birthplace of immigrants through emigration records from European countries. Emigration records consist of documents such as passenger contracts, passport files, vestry minutes and consular records, which are difficult to access.

The center's mission is to find those records to help advance family history work.

"Our goal is to create a database of immigrants, people who left Europe in the 19th Century," said Leandro Soria, executive director of IAP. "In order to create a database, we need to find the names of those people who find those names in records or documents."

The IAP has devised four goals to find these records, including identifying emigration records, acquiring copies, extracting data on individuals, and making indexed data available for free.

Workers and students on the project travel through Europe locating records in archives, indexing the information and then distribute it through the Internet for others to extract.

This work requires many volunteers. The center provides training for anyone who is willing to help through eight free online tutorials and professional guides who can provide assistance through the research process.

"Our purpose is twofold, one to provide a service to Religion 261 students and for patrons who are interested in learning from family history research methods," said Mikilani Yamada, administrative services supervisor for the center. "The second purpose is working on current family history research projects."

Through the IAP the center has accomplished a lot in the way of family history work by finding records such as passport register books and passenger lists from several countries in Europe.

Some students involved in the IAP are family history majors, who are required to go on an internship. Students have traveled to areas such as Spain, the British Isles, Italy and the Netherlands. On these internships, students and professors search for names and information in archives and then extract that information for others to research.

In addition, the IAP consists of an international team of workers and volunteers in seven different European sections. These sections are British, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portugese and Dutch.

Some students have even found unexpected ancestors through the IAP. Benjamin Crowder, software developer and graphic designer for the IAP, found a name in his family history research, Manuela San Emeterio. He did not know San Emeterio existed in his family line. Crowder said he would not have found her if it was not for the IAP.

"It's exciting to work on a project which has so much potential to make available records which would have lain inaccessible in remote archives otherwise," Crowder said. "It's a job that sends ripples throughout the eternities, hopefully bringing families together and turning hearts. It's hard to beat that."