Ellis Island News Conference

Brent represented the Church at a news conference held at Ellis Island. Guests of honor included Lee Iacocca, Edwin Schlossberg, and Caroline Kennedy. He was also interviewed for the "Religion and Ethics" program which appears nationally on public television.

Here is the text from the Church's press release:

ELLIS ISLAND TO GET FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER
Church is Digitizing 17 Million Immigrant Records for the Facility

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is playing a key role in the establishment of a family history research center on New York's Ellis Island, where in two years the public will have automated access to a computerized database containing 17 million U.S. immigration records.

At a news conference today on the island, Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation Chairman Emeritus Lee Iacocca announced plans for the American Family Immigration History Center, expected to open in the year 2000. During the past five years, the Church, in cooperation with the foundation and the National Park Service, has spent more than two million volunteer hours digitizing Ellis Island records. To date, some 65 percent of the records have been extracted from microfilmed copies of the original ledgers--passenger records and ships' manifests--which were mostly hand-
written, faded and damaged. The original documents were destroyed years ago. The remaining 35 percent of the records will be extracted and digitized by the opening of the center, which will be situated in the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The center will house state-of-the-art interactive computer technology that will bring family documentation and genealogical exploration to visitors.

The Ellis Island records represent some 60 percent of all U.S. immigration records. It is estimated that more than 100 million Americans today can trace their roots to immigrants who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.

The Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a world leader in genealogical research, with more than 3,200 family history centers worldwide and the world's largest collection of family history records, housed in Salt Lake City.