PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia is a step closer to digitizing its rich collection of historical records, after a City Council committee on Tuesday advanced a bill to give the job to Ancestry.com.
For historians and the growing number of amateur genealogists tracing their family roots, Philadelphia’s archive is a treasure trove, containing 20 million documents — detailing births, deaths, marriages, deeds and naturalizations — some going back to the 1700s. However, as Records Commissioner Jim Leonard said, access is a problem.
“Today, these records are primarily available to the public only in person at the archives building on Spring Garden Street,” he told the committee. “Our digital access to them is very limited.”
Digitizing them would be cost-prohibitive, according to Leonard, but Ancestry has agreed to do it for free, in exchange for hosting the records exclusively on its website. This would make the records — which are currently available only in person at the city archives — accessible to Ancestry subscribers and for free to anyone at any of 50 Free Library branches.
“The partnership will preserve Philadelphia’s historical legacy to future generations and will transform access from local and limited to global and easily accessible,” he said.
As Leonard explained, it would take two years for Ancestry to digitize all of the records and preserve them for generations. He assured the committee no living person’s information is involved and said the records will be protected while in Ancestry’s possession.
“I also want to assure you this is not an experimental approach. Over 60 state and local archives nationwide have partnerships with Ancestry,” he said.
The committee passed the deal unanimously. Members confessed they’ve used Ancestry to research their own families, though Councilmember Mike Driscoll advised caution in that pursuit.
“Mark Twain spent $25 to have his family history researched and it cost him $50 to cover it up,” he said, “so you never know what you’re going to find.”