Chelsea District Library was lucky enough to have a collection
that included full-text clippings of obituaries on a significant portion
of the cards in the Family History Index. Because of this and advances
in technology, one of the library’s primary goals was to make complete
text available freely online, meaning genealogists and researchers had
at least the possibility of meeting their research needs without leaving
their computer or contacting the library at all. To further this goal, the
library sought to develop a database that was free, simple to use, and
contained relatively small image files accessible even by those with
dial-up internet connections.