FamilySearch Wiki:Introduction: Difference between revisions

FamilySearch is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide genealogical records and services to customers worldwide. Our services are free, as are most of our products -- including data sets online.<ref>FamilySearch occasionally offers products at cost, such as genealogical records on CD-ROM, and we sometimes charge a fee to recuperate costs, such as the price of postage for a microfilm sent to a patron at a Family History Center. We sometimes collaborate with commercial companies to provide indexes or digitized records, but we do not receive funds from them. However, 99% of our resources are offered to the public free of charge.</ref> We are funded by contributions from members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).  

== Our customers -- and why serving every country is important  ==

We serve millions of people each year and although the Research Wiki is funded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the overwhelming majority of our users are not LDS. The folks who use the Wiki range from the richest of people to the poorest. They come to the Wiki to find their ancestors and to get help as they do their genealogy. We have records here from 244 countries all over the planet and that number is growing.  

When survival is tough in their nation of birth, people tend to emigrate to countries where life is not as difficult and once people settle in to their new country, their thoughts often turn to the ancestors who were left behind, and buried in those countries.&nbsp; Descendants of emigrants often become disconnected from their heritage and want to learn about their families. Thus, FamilySearch receives questions regarding genealogical research in even the poorest of countries -- including those where genealogy is an oral tradition rather than a process of documentation.