FamilySearch Indexing (Utah Department of Corrections)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Government Records Access and Management Act, I hereby request the following records:

Policies, procedures and/or documents pertaining to indexing for FamilySearch, otherwise known as Intellectual Reserve, Inc., a genealogical non-profit operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) by inmates within Utah Department of Corrections facilities. This includes any documents regarding Family History Centers operated within Utah Department of Corrections facilities, such as those in the Oquirrh, Wasatch, Timpanogos and Promontory units of the Utah State Prison, and any documents referencing LDS Correctional Services, a division of LDS.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Burkely Hermann

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Utah Government Records Access and Management Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on Sept. 7, 2019. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

Best regards,
Burkely Hermann

Ms. Kummer,
Thanks for your message, but the fact that you say no records can be located makes no sense to me. On your own website you talk about Family History Centers:

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opened the first Family History Center at the Utah State Prison in the 1980s to engage inmates in genealogical data input and personal family history research. Inmates, overseen by volunteers, use computers that connect to LDS Church’s family-history research databases or dedicated, stand-alone servers. Today, there are four centers in different facilities at the Utah State Prison and one at the Central Utah Correctional Facility. In 2013, state inmates indexed more than 2 million records."
https://corrections.utah.gov/index.php?Itemid=162&catid=22&id=1046:volunteer-led-programs&option=com_content&view=article

You even note a Family History Center operating at Wasatch (https://corrections.utah.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=18&Itemid=307).
From what I can gather, there has to be some arrangement between UDC and FamilySearch, especially for the operation of Family History Centers in any of your facilities, which is what I am after with this request.

Best regards,
Burkely Hermann

Kara,
Thanks for your outreach on this. Interesting that you don't have a policy pertaining to this, because a couple other counties in Utah (Cache, Summit, and Kane) all have contracts with FamilySearch, from what I've found recently. I'll definitely email them and ask them more about this program. Thanks again.

Best regards,
Burkely Hermann