--- title: A Historic Collaboration with FamilySearch description: Last week a group of NEHGS staff members joined 22,000 attendees at the 2015 RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, for four days of learning. image: https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Vita-Brevis-Ohio-Tax-Records-1800-1850-300x200-1.jpg --- # [Vita Brevis A resource for family history from AmericanAncestors.org](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. # A Historic Collaboration with FamilySearch [February 20, 2015](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/02/historic-collaboration-family-search) [News](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/news), [RootsTech 2015](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/rootstech-2015), [Spotlight](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/spotlight) [Ryan Woods](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/rwoods) [![From the Ohio Tax Records database* supplied to NEHGS by FamilySearch.org](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Vita-Brevis-Ohio-Tax-Records-1800-1850-300x200-1.jpg?width=300&height=200&name=Vita-Brevis-Ohio-Tax-Records-1800-1850-300x200-1.jpg)](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Vita-Brevis-Ohio-Tax-Records-1800-1850-1.jpg) From the Ohio Tax Records database* supplied to NEHGS by FamilySearch.org Last week a group of NEHGS staff members joined 22,000 attendees at the 2015 RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, for four days of learning, research, and fun. At the keynote session of the conference, NEHGS and FamilySearch made a historic announcement: a multi-year collaboration between the two nonprofit organizations to share data, digitize new records, and work to build an online family tree experience for NEHGS constituents. Under a multi-year agreement, we will add more than 1 billion name records from the FamilySearch global historic record collections to AmericanAncestors.org and another 1 billion records from the FamilySearch family tree to our future family tree experience. The searchable and browsable records to be added to the NEHGS website include U.S. federal census transcripts (1790–1930); civil registrations for Italy, Germany, Scotland, and the Netherlands; English birth, christening, marriage, and death record transcripts dating from the fifteenth century through the twentieth century; and a panoply of census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records for states across the U.S. In turn, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will have access to portions of AmericanAncestors.org through online affiliate accounts. In addition, NEHGS and FamilySearch will work together to digitize and make accessible unique materials from the NEHGS collection such as cemetery records from around the U.S. and Canada, historic tax records, early American military records, early New England marriage records, historic newspapers, and original scholarship from NEHGS published books. Founded in 1845, New England Historic Genealogical Society is America’s oldest and most respected resource for family history research and the largest genealogical society in America today. Although the institution’s name says “New England,” our organization is national in scope and provides expertise and research materials through AmericanAncestors.org in nearly all aspects of family history, from seventeenth-century colonial New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia through twenty-first-century immigration research. For FamilySearch this collaboration will provide indispensable assistance to Latter-day Saint family historians by consolidating resources and providing a breadth of information unavailable elsewhere. By partnering with us, FamilySearch is making an unprecedented scope of data available and accessible to the members of the LDS Church, some very eager consumers of historical materials. The ease of access to New England records will prove very encouraging to novice genealogists, and downright exciting to more seasoned enthusiasts. FamilySearch and New England Historic Genealogical Society keenly understand the importance of collaboration in family history. Our two organizations are teaming together to help provide high-quality solutions and experiences for the family history community.   * *This project was indexed in partnership between FamilySearch and the Ohio Genealogical Society. Name index of tax records as recorded with the County Auditor of each county. Includes the following Ohio counties: Ashtabula, Belmont, Carroll, Columbiana, Guernsey, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Monroe, Trumbull and Washington. The majority of the tax records in this collection are for the years 1816 through 1838.* ### Share this: - [mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/02/historic-collaboration-family-search](mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/02/historic-collaboration-family-search) - - - More - - ![Ryan Woods](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Ryan_Woods_Jan25_2.jpg) ## About Ryan Woods An educator and historian, Ryan J. Woods is President & Chief Executive Officer of American Ancestors. For more than two decades, he has dedicated his professional life to developing experiences to educate, inspire, and connect people through the exploration of history, heritage, and culture. Since joining the American Ancestors staff in 2007, he has played a key role bringing the enduring power and promise of family history to people across the country and around the globe. He was the lead creator of AmericanAncestors.org. By fostering important collaborations with commercial and nonprofit partners, he recruited more than 1 billion searchable records to American Ancestors. He also led the collaborative effort to establish our Jewish Heritage Center. Currently, Ryan is focused on record access, partnerships, business planning for capital expansion, the creation of a national visitor destination experience, and the launch of 10 Million Names. Ryan serves in leadership roles for several nonprofit organizations including as chairman of the Committee on Heraldry; appointed commissioner of the Special Commission for the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; advisory board member for the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party; Secretary-General of the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences; member of the Committee on Pretensions of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Connecticut; Deputy Governor of the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; partner representative on the Mayor of Boston’s Green Ribbon Commission; and past-President of the Boston University School of Education Alumni Association. Ryan is also an active Mason, belonging to The Lodge of Saint Andrew, where he serves as an appointed officer. He is a member of the Order of Saint John, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the Mayflower Society, the Sons of the Revolution, the Saint Nicholas Society of New York City, and the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. In 2022, Ryan was elected an Honorary Life Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He also was honored by the New England Society in the City of New York (founded 1805), with the Townsend Award “in recognition of outstanding achievement representing the finest attributes of the New England character.” Prior to joining American Ancestors, he held several positions at other cultural and historical institutions, including the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). During his tenure with NARA, he received the Archivist of the United States' Award for Outstanding Public Service. A dedicated researcher, Ryan has authored pedagogical articles about the use of historical biographies to teach character and ethics and contributed genealogical articles and several book forewords for historical and genealogical publications. Born in Houston, Texas and raised along Lake Champlain in Vermont, Ryan attended Boston University earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in history education.[View all posts by Ryan Woods →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/rwoods) [← RootsTech Wrap Up](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/02/rootstech-wrap) [Making Sense of Money in Colonial America →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/02/making-sense-money-colonial-america) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. ### Recent Posts [Sailor Bill and His Forgotten Wife](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/sailor-bill-and-his-forgotten-wife) [Professor X](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/professor-x) [Part I: Malaga Island, Maine](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/part-i-malaga-island-maine) [The Norwegian folge](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/the-norwegian-folge) [Research…in a Miniskirt? 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