FamilySearch

Install

Works with Claude Code, Codex, VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop. Read the repository before you give any tool access to your data.

npx agentmarket install connector/ianderso-familysearch-mcp

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What this server can do and what it asks for, from its tool list, install config and code. Checked Oct 26, 2026.

Tools

18 read · 1 write · 0 delete

Secrets

1 (API keys, tokens or passwords)

Install scripts

None found

Runs as

Python package

Tools (19)

Read from the source code; the running server may differ. Descriptions are the server’s own words; hidden characters are shown as [U+…].

• auth_status

  Report whether credentials are configured, and what is missing. With a token configured, also asks FamilySearch whether it is still accepted (`token_accepted`): `authenticated` only means one is set, and a token lasts about an hour. This server ships no client id. Production access needs your own registered FamilySearch application; see docs/AUTH.md.

• browse_waypoints

  Browse a collection's structure — its places, volumes and images. The way to reach a page the index never covered: collection, then county, volume or date range, then images. An image's ark opens with get_image_links. Start with a collection_id. To descend, pass a child's waypoint_id and the same collection_id: FamilySearch refuses a waypoint without its collection. A collection with nothing to browse says so. Works without a token.

• download_image

  Download a document image to a local file so it can be read. This is the step that turns a citation into evidence. The image is written to disk rather than returned inline: a full page scan runs to megabytes, which is not something to push through a tool result. Only FamilySearch image URLs are fetched, because the request carries your access token. Images are copyrighted or access-restricted in some collections. Treat a downloaded file as a working copy for reading, not as something to redistribute.

• fulltext_search

  Search the machine-read text of page images: deeds, wills, probate, court files. Finds a name or phrase anywhere on a page, including the witnesses, heirs and neighbours no index names. Each hit is one page image, with the passages that matched. The text is handwriting recognition, a machine reading: open the image with get_image_links, read it yourself, and cite the image, never the text. Coverage is partial, so no result proves nothing. Each hit gives the citation path: collection, record title and image ark. Requires an access token.

• get_catalog_entry

  Read a FamilySearch Catalog entry: title, authors, places, notes, and its films. The Catalog lists the library's holdings. An entry for a county's probate files or deed books lists each film or DGS (digital image group) with a description: volume, case numbers, years. Some run to thousands, so use contains. Each item returned gives its image count and whether this account can view it; open a page with get_film_image(dgs, image). An entry describes holdings, not a record: cite the image you read. Some films are restricted or were never digitised. A DGS number is not the microfilm number. Give…

• get_collection

  Read one record collection: what it covers, and how much of it there is. Worth reading before trusting a nil result. The counts say how many records, people and images the collection holds, and a collection whose image count is far below its record count was indexed from film that was largely never published. Works without a token.

• get_collection_fields

  Decode the field codes a collection's indexed records use. An indexed record labels its values with codes rather than words — `PR_FTHR_NAME`, `EVENT_PLACE`, `PR_NAME_SURN_ORIG`. The codes are per-collection, and this is the dictionary that turns them into "Father's Name", "Event Place" and so on. Read it before interpreting a record from a collection you have not worked with. Works without a token.

• get_film_image

  Reach a page image by film and image number instead of by ark. Citations often name a film (DGS) and an image rather than an ark: get_record_image reports them for an indexed record, and get_catalog_entry lists a volume's DGS numbers and image counts. Checks the thumbnail first, so a wrong film or image number is a clear answer, not a URL that fails later. The thumbnail needs no token; the full page does.

• get_image_links

  Resolve a document image to its actual, fetchable URLs. A record read does not carry image links; the image resource does, and this is it. Returns the storage node, the deep-zoom descriptor, thumbnails at several sizes, and `dist` — the full-resolution page. Also returns the neighbouring pages. A pension file or a passenger manifest runs to many images, and the entry you want is often not the one the index pointed at. With a token it gives the film (image group) and image number, which a citation to the page needs.

• get_place

  Read one place: its jurisdictional chain, type, coordinates and dates. The dates are the ones that matter for research. A place description records the span over which that jurisdiction existed, so you can check whether the county a record names was the county in being on the date the record was made. Works without credentials.

• get_place_children

  List the places directly inside a jurisdiction. The downward walk, complementing get_place_jurisdictions' upward one. Use it to find the right sub-jurisdiction when a record names a town you cannot place, or to see what a county contained at the time. Works without a token.

• get_place_jurisdictions

  Walk a place's containment chain upward to the country. This is what turns "Kaskaskia" into "Kaskaskia, Randolph, Illinois, United States". The chain is returned innermost first, each level carrying its own id, type and the span over which it existed, so you can see at which level the naming changed. Works without credentials.

• get_record

  Read one indexed record in full. A search returns a persona: one person's summary of what a record said. This returns the record, which is more: every person named on it, and the indexed fields behind each of them, labelled with the box on the original form each value was read from. The fields are where a search summary loses things -- the informant, the witness, the enumerator's spelling, the age that contradicts the birth year. Each fact gives its value, date and place as FamilySearch reads them, and under original what the indexer transcribed ("M" for "Married"). A date or place with no …

• get_record_image

  Find the document image an indexed record was taken from. The persona is somebody's reading of the record. The image is the record. Indexers mis-read hands, skip columns, normalise spellings and guess at ages, so anything that matters should be checked against the film. Returns whatever the record offers as a route to the image: image and waypoint links, and the digital film (DGS) and image numbers indexed against it. Many records carry no image link at all, in which case this says so rather than inventing one -- a great deal of the archive was indexed from microfilm that has never been publ…

• get_records_on_image

  List every record indexed from one image. The reverse of get_record_image. A passenger manifest page carries thirty people and a census page forty; finding one of them tells you where the others are. Use it to pick up a household, or to check whether the person you want was indexed at all from a page you are already reading. Requires an access token.

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90

Last commit

Oct 11, 2026 (22 days ago)

Last release

Oct 11, 2026 (22 days ago)

Last package publish

Oct 11, 2026 (22 days ago)

From GitHub (fetched Oct 24, 2026) and the package registry.

Details

Registry name

io.github.ianderso/familysearch-mcp

Version

1.4.0

Auth

API key

Packages

pypi familysearch-mcp

License

MIT

Repository

github.com/ianderso/familysearch-mcp

First seen

Oct 24, 2026

Last checked

Oct 24, 2026

Source

Official MCP Registrygithub-graphql