A friend of mine went to a history fair last weekend, and there was a representative from the Mormon Church set up in a booth at the fair. My friend has been doing a lot of genealogical work on her family tree, so she went over to chat with the representative. She was told something interesting that I have not been able to verify yet with our local Mormon church.
My friend was told that if you submit your family tree research to Family Search (the Mormon genealogical website), you can write off your expenses on your taxes, since the church considers it a donation.
Does anyone know if this is true? Is it true only of church members? I'm a volunteer at a local Family History Center, and I know members have a way of submitting their family tree, but as far as I know only members can do this. (You need a membership number to use the software.) We haven't had a non-Mormon come into our center on one of my shifts wanting to submit their family tree, so I haven't encountered this yet in my volunteer work.
Many thanks for your help!
Donna
Submitting your tree to Family Search
Re: Submitting your tree to Family Search
I never heard of this before. I will email my FHC Director on Wednesday since tomorrow is a holiday here and she what she has to say. Meanwhile, maybe some one else can answer this. I know we have a few members here that also volunteer at their local FHC and perhaps they have the answer.
Re: Submitting your tree to Family Search
Yes, it is considered a donation, but you will likely not get much of a deduction for tax purposes. Generally, when you donate personal property (i.e. the family tree research), your deduction is the fair market value of the property. The question here, is what is the value of one copy of your family history/tree (that is , what would you be able to sell one copy for?). Although I have many years of research and documents in my family history, I am sure I would not be able to sell it for much more than the cost of lunch 
