Ancestry Magazine: "Wired States of America: A Look at Digital Records Near You"

Ancestry Magazine “scoured the Web to find which states are taking an active roll in getting genealogy records online,” and the Utah State Archives earns a place in the listings.

Back when my grandma was assembling the family history, her keyboard was connected to a wide-carriage typewriter. Scanning a document implied you’d be running your finger down a column of an index. And searching a database meant a trip down to the Family History Library with her sister-in-law (Grandma always kept a suitcase packed).

Wired? That was what you did to light bulbs, plugs, and anything you were trying to jury-rig in place. And never once did it have anything to do with what states were doing to make records accessible to home computer users.

Oh Grandma, if you could see us now.

Take a look around and you’ll see that Washington, D.C., isn’t the only place where change is coming and your tax dollars are at work. Everywhere, archives are going digital, which means states are bringing records to you.