A misunderstanding about an order from the Catholic Church preventing the release of records to a third party won't slow down genealogy work.

The Catholic Church will still release records to people trying to do their own family's genealogy, whether they belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or not, as long as they have a legitimate need for the records.

The Catholic Church has policies already in place to keep sacramental records private, said Colleen Gudreau, a spokeswoman for the Salt Lake Diocese. A recent letter from Catholic Church officials in Rome to dioceses around the world was primarily a reminder to catholic bishops of their responsibility with those records, she said.

"It's partially a misunderstanding," she said. "The [Catholic] Church will still provide information to people with a legitimate need."

Gudreau said she recognized that the LDS Church has done great service in some communities when they put documents on microfiche. However, she said most government documents are public records while sacramental records are not.

"It was clarification of canon law to safeguard private records," she said.

The LDS Church wasn't too concerned about the recent order from the Vatican.

"It's a Catholic issue," said Scott Trotter, spokesman for the LDS Church. "We're leaving it to them."

Howard Bybee, the family history librarian at the BYU Family History Center, didn't have much to say about the Catholic Church's letter.

"We don't know what the effect will be," he said.

The LDS Church has a program where genealogists will take records and photograph them for microfilm or microfiche, giving a copy to the organization and keeping one for their records, Bybee said.

Despite the misunderstanding, work seems to be going on as usual in the library.

Library patrons Kenneth and Stanley Butler have been reading Danish records on microfilm at the BYU Family History Library for the last two years, and have reached an exciting point in their research. The two brothers made a goal to make a submission of names to an LDS temple for posthumous ordinance work, which they met on May 23.

"We've found enough names to create a ward," Stanley said.

The Butler brothers are not the only ones taking advantage of the many resources available at the BYU Library.

The wide variety of patrons includes people from surrounding neighborhoods, and all of the wards on campus. The library even had some high school students come in last semester and spend two weeks doing research full time, he said.

BYU's library was the first Family History Center for the LDS Church, Bybee said. It is still one of the largest libraries for the church, he said. However, the family history program has grown drastically, allowing the church to build centers all over the world.

Bybee said he tries to have the latest technology available to help researchers.

"But we still have the antiquated stuff," he said.

The library has more than 180,000 rolls of microfilm, as well as maps and archives of newspapers, and even personal papers of individuals that have been donated or published, Bybee said.

In addition to this, many governments are starting to put records online, Bybee said.

"It helps a lot. You don't have to travel there. You can get them online," he said.

Bybee said he realizes "not everyone can do genealogy at a peak level." But he said everyone can do something.

Some of the students taking his advice are called as their ward family history co-chairs. Emily Mecham of the BYU 66th ward is taking a family history class at BYU as well as serving in that calling.

"Before that, it was something in the back of my mind," Mecham said. "I wanted to get involved, but didn't know how until I got called."

So much information is available that it can be overwhelming, Mecham said.

"I don't have much practice doing research," she said.

The missionaries serving in the library are helpful if you have questions, Mecham said. She has gone in with questions, and they have spent an hour going over basics and helping her find the information, she said.

"I wish we could all believe we can do family history," Mecham said. "There's always time to do something."



Copyright Brigham Young University 10 Jun 2008