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Historical documents held by organisations including The Priaulx Library, the Island Archives, and the Greffe could be digitised for the first time, making it easier for people to trace their family trees and backgrounds.
A project has been launched which could see all local family history records, including those held by the Church of England and La Societé Guernesiaise, put online.
Together as a group, the various organisations which hold the island's historical and genealogical records will be going out to tender for online family history companies to apply to digitise them.
If one of those businesses makes an acceptable offer to do that, then it would follow that pieces of history including documents relating to births, deaths and marriages and other related family history records, will be available online.
Pictured: Steve Foote, Chief Executive at the Priaulx Library.
It's hoped a deal can be agreed this Spring with family history and genealogical records identified as a priority for this work with the initial focus being on birth, baptism, marriage, death, and burial registers. Other records of local history and family backgrounds such as German Occupation identity registration forms housed at the Island Archives will also be included.
All paper records would be maintained in a physical capacity at the various locations, meaning anyone wanting to search through documents themselves can do so in person at the various locations.
Steve Foote, Priaulx Library Chief Executive, said work could start on this project around Easter time.
“We have now reached the next step on this exciting project and are awaiting the tender responses. We are hoping to be in a position to announce the successful partner in April," he said.
Pictured: Digitising records means people across the world will be able to access local historical documents.
“At the Priaulx, this is a key part of our strategy to make local records available to local and family historians around the world, and bring the library’s offerings into the twenty-first century. We are very excited about this collaboration and the opportunities this will bring," continued Mr Foote.
Vikki Hart, Island Archivist at the Island Archives, said there is a large amount of interest in family and local histories so it makes sense to make them more accessible to people in the islands and abroad.
“Guernsey is currently falling behind other jurisdictions in terms of availability of digitised records online, and this is an excellent opportunity to change that. It will not only make our records more accessible, especially to researchers who are unable to visit in person, but also help us to better preserve them in the long term. The 2 more these documents are handled, the faster they can degrade, so providing an option to access them online will help us to preserve them for future generations.
“We would like to reassure locals and researchers alike, however, that physical access will still remain the same. This digitisation programme is about expanding researchers’ options, not replacing access to the physical records.”
Pictured: Births, deaths and marriages were traditionally registered at the Greffe.
When a company is chosen to do the work, they will bear the costs involved in scanning and indexing all of the records.
They will host all of the digitised records on their website in an easily searchable format, which will be accessible to subscribers from their own devices and also for free for all visitors to the Priaulx Library, Greffe and Island Archives.
The local organisations involved in the digitisation project are The Priaulx Library, Island Archives, the Church of England, La Société Guernesiaise and the Greffe.
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