The world’s largest collection of genealogical records is housed in a secure vault located in the mountains near Salt Lake City, Utah. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built the Granite Mountain Records Vault in 1965 to preserve and protect records of importance to the Church, including its vast collection of family history microfilms.
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For security reasons, there is no public access to the Granite Mountain Records Vault, but click here to watch a behind-the-scenes video tour.
The vault safeguards more than 3.5 billion images on microfilm, microfiche, and digital media. Currently, the Church is in the process of digitizing the microfilms and making those digital records available through the FamilySearch.org website. To learn more about this process, take a look at this video.
The images in the Granite Mountain Records Vault are collected through agreements with archives, libraries, and churches from more than 100 countries. Copies of these records are given free of charge to the record custodian and on occasion, additional copies are provided to replace records that may have been lost in a natural disaster or fire. Click here to watch the story of how the Church was able to replace valuable genealogical records for the Pacific island nation of Niue after a devastating cyclone.