When Windcrest resident Mary Gagne has trouble sleeping, she does not waste time tossing and turning. She gets up and turns on her computer. She can spend hours surfing the Web or emailing friends.

Instead, she downloads a page from the 1900 U.S. Census, and types family names and dates into her computer. She has entered more than 14,000 names so far and hopes to keep doing it as long as she can.

“It feels good to finish another page and make another 50 names available to anyone looking for their family records,” Gagne said. “I can do it in the middle of the night without leaving home.”

Gagne is one of 70,000 volunteers worldwide who enter handwritten records into a free online Family Search database program sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The names Gagne and other volunteers enter are then made available at no charge to people searching online at www.familysearch.com. All the searcher has to know is a person’s name. A list of records containing that name pops up. This can significantly reduce search time.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been gathering family and government records since 1894 to help people research their family histories. The collection now includes more than 2 million microfilms of records from 110 countries and principalities. The Windcrest LDS church also serves as the Family History Center, and hosted a genealogy seminar Saturday.

While some records can be searched online, many have to be viewed in person because the information is not digital. Once the information is typed into the Family Search database, it can be sorted and searched quickly and easily.

A new indexing program is speeding the work. In the past, Gagne typed the information from index cards into the computer. It was difficult to keep track as she moved her eyes from the card to the computer.

With the new program, a photo of the original document is in the top of the screen and Gagne types what she sees in a form on the bottom of the screen.

“It’s so much faster than before,” Gagne said. “There is no go-between person to get the information from. It comes directly to my computer. I do it and send it back. We’re getting so much more done.”

A page with 50 names that took Gagne several hours to enter can now be done in about 30 minutes, she added.

Local extraction coordinator David Fite and his wife, Margaret, are excited about the new indexing program. Each handwritten page is indexed by two different people, he said. A third person, called an arbitrator, compares the two records and examines any discrepancies.

With this process, accuracy is about 99.7 percent, Fite added. They are always looking for more volunteers to enter information into the Family Search index.

“The more the merrier,” Fite said. “This is the ideal project for someone who wants to feel useful and contribute to an important work.”

People from all walks of life including retired people, students, busy professionals and others, can participate. All they need is access to a computer connected to the Internet. Each person decides how much time they want to spend entering the information and how long they want to participate.

“There are so many records to index, that this is a long term project,” Fite said. “Some people make it a family project and get teenagers involved. Other people do it on laptops while traveling, and others do it at the library.”

Universal City nurse, Karen Hall recently signed up to do indexing.

“I feel like I’m doing something good,” Hall said. “I just hope that while I am working on someone else’s family line, that someone is doing my line.”

For more, call the Fites at 658-8574 or visit www.familysearchindexing.org.