FamilySearch/Ancestry Partnership

FamilySearch and Ancestry.com recently announced a joint agreement to begin a 5-year effort to digitize and index more than 1 billion records from around the world.

Some Questions and Answers from FamilySearch regarding the announcement:

How does the family history community benefit?
An important goal for FamilySearch is to make it easier for people everywhere to discover and share their family history. This joint agreement will put valuable record collections within reach of millions of people who might not otherwise have access.

Who will have access to records that are indexed by FamilySearch volunteers?
Records that are indexed by FamilySearch volunteers will continue to be available at no cost to visitors of FamilySearch.org.  In addition to this, many of these records will also become available through partner sites such as Ancestry.com.

Will people have to pay to see records indexed by FamilySearch volunteers?
No. Such indexed records will continue to be available for free at FamilySearch.org as they always have. If a person is paying for a subscription to a service such as at Ancestry.com, they may have access to these records from within Ancestry products, but this is not required.