Albany Family Search Centre to extend its hours to help community delve into family trees

Community members will have the chance to delve into and discover their family history next week at the Albany Family Search Centre.

The centre, which operates out of the Church of Latter Day Saints on Seymour Street, will open its doors on September 14 for an extended five-hour session to help the community find out where they come from.

AFHC director Graham James said he wanted to help people research their family history to build family trees.

He said the Family Search program was a digitised record accessible from all over the world in about 100 languages.

“It allows a lot of people throughout the world to be able to communicate with one another,” he said.

“DNA tests also open windows to finding rellies that you never even knew existed.

“My wife has found a couple of lost cousins through DNA tests, so they are a pretty important thing.”

The database has been built up over time through the collations of records, many of which have now been digitised, and is supported by the church on an international scale.

Mr James said the centre brought “forth family trees like the Albany Advertiser is bringing forward the history of Albany”.

“If we don’t exchange that information now then it will be lost for forever and a day,” he said.

“We must try and encourage the older generation to start and preserve things.”

He said “little hidden things” could be found all the time without even expecting it.

“Don’t think that one of your family has got all the information and you don’t need any more,” he said.

“It’s always better to have your own records because we’ve had examples where people might have a family tree somewhere and it’s been destroyed.

“This is a major theme because we’ve seen so many fires and floods so we need to be able to share information out, copy it, give a copy to relations so it’s not lost.”

He said the Family Search Centre could also help preserve documents, photos and audio in its database.

The centre will be open from 10am to 3pm to help the community search and preserve family histories.

If you miss the opportunity to visit the centre on September 14, it is also open from 10am to midday on Tuesday and Thursday each week.