Last updated 07:22, January 25 2018
FamilySearch volunteer Mike Woods has helped digitise more than 300,000 probate records.
In an unassuming room, tucked away in Archives New Zealand's Wellington office, volunteers from around the world have been methodically working their way through more than 4 million pieces of paper.
For the past nine years, it's been a base for FamilySearch, an international genealogy organisation, working to archive shreds of New Zealand probate records, up till 1993, and make them available online for free.
It's an ambitious project that has, this week, finally come to an end with volunteers Mike and Lois Woods of Page, Arizona, in charge of digitising the last of the records.
For the past 18 months, Mike and Lois Woods, of Arizona, have been based in Wellington, working to digitise hundreds of thousands of probate records for access online.
"Each of these documents represents a living, breathing human being who existed here on Earth so to say it's just a probate is erroneous because that may be the only record of that person in existence," Lois Woods says.
"We treat every single one as valuable."
Over her 18-month stint, Lois Woods was tasked with removing all the staples from the probate records, most of which she kept in a series of jars.
Probate records are crucial to genealogical research and contain more than 30 types of documents including wills, affidavits, property records and death certificates.
Mike Woods, who handles the technology side of things, estimates he's made copies of more than 300,000 documents during his 18-month stint, using a slick camera and lighting set up.
"Luckily, the camera is always in focus so I can get through quite a high number in a short amount of time," he says.
The pair came to New Zealand at their own cost to undertake the archiving work after becoming hooked on learning –and teaching others – about their own family histories.
"We had been working with teaching people for about three years, hard-core before we decided to come here and we've loved every minute of it," Lois Woods says.
She hasn't been alone in helping with the project, with several other volunteer teams working at Archives NZ offices in Christchurch, Auckland and Dunedin.
"We've had cameras all over New Zealand and there are 300-odd cameras like this around the world, doing the same work," New Zealand and Pacific FamilySearch manager Mike Higgins says.
The standalone organisation is fully funded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After the documents have been digitised, they are sent to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the FamilySearch Family History Library is located.
"The idea is that we're trying to build a worldwide [family] tree, for the family of mankind, so people can look at it and start collaborating with other people doing research along the same lines," Higgins says.
"We feel that it's really important for us to seek out our ancestors, to understand them and who they were."
As part of the project, FamilySearch will keep a digital copy on Archives NZ's behalf, as a safeguard in case anything happens to the original records.
* The New Zealand probate records are available on familysearch.org.
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