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To: rupert1 who wrote (62173)	5/28/1999 3:22:00 AM
From: rupert1	Respond to of 97611

Maybe the Mormons should switch to COMPAQ NON-STOP - or maybe Alta Vista should offer genealogy services? __________________ The FT (UK) Technology May 28 1999 Hunt for family tree felled by overload Mormon church's genealogical web site gets 50m hits an hour, writes Christopher Price A very modern problem has hit the age-old search for family roots: computer overload. The world's biggest genealogical web site, which went live on Monday, ground to a halt after hundreds of millions of users tried to log on. The site, owned by the Mormon church, is designed to handle up to 25m visits a day. On Monday, according to the church, it received 30m; on Tuesday 100m; and on Wednesday a further 100m. Familysearch.com is now back in business after a hurried upgrade from its operator, International Business Machines. Users yesterday were being limited to 15 minutes. IBM said it was receiving up to 50m hits an hour - the same as Yahoo!, the biggest internet search engine group. It was working with the church on further upgrades. The astonishing degree of interest underlines the immense popularity of genealogy on the internet. Analysts said it wasthe third most popular internet pursuit - after pornography and share dealing - and had spawned more than 4,000 dedicated sites. The internet allows genealogists to search complex amounts of data, transforming the pastime. In addition, Americans are particularly keen on tracing their ancestors - and the US has the highest proportion of internet users in the world. The site's success brings no material benefit to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - the Mormons. It neither charges for access nor accepts advertising. Instead, the church uses the details of the deceased, all of which date from at least 100 years ago, to administer posthumous religious blessings. "It is baptism by proxy really," said Bryan Grant, director of public affairs at the church. "We ask them first in our prayers and as part of the blessing if they mind us doing it." Familysearch.com is the latest development in the Mormon church's International Genealogical Index begun after the second world war, prompted by the fear that many records would be lost or destroyed in the reconstruction of war-torn Europe. Since then the church has spent "billions of dollars," according to Mr Bryant, photographing and indexing millions of official records, mostly from northern Europe and the US. It has 14 separate teams in the UK photographing old parish records. In return for access to their records, churches and other institutions receive a copy of the microfilm. This can then be used by other researchers, saving the often delicate records from being handled manually.