The Mormon Church has launched a project to build a data center in Kansas City, Missouri, to house genealogical records ÔÇô such as birth certificates ÔÇô it has been collecting for almost 100 years, Kansas City Star reported.

This will be the third such data center built by the Salt Lake City-based organization, also referred to as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church expects to start construction of the 60,000 sq ft facility by the end of November and launch it early in 2013.

Russell Stay, senior VP of Family Search, an entity created by the church, told KCS that the Mormon church has the largest repository of genealogical information in the world. "We've been pursuing this a long time," he said.

A major purpose for keeping genealogical data is for the members to baptize their ancestors as Mormons posthumously. To do this, however, members must prove blood relationship to the deceased.

"The other important idea is the linking literally and figuratively of family," Stay said. "The idea is to elevate the concept of family." The church makes the genealogical data it complies available to anyone interested in tracing their family history, according to KCS.

"Latter-day Saints believe families can be together after this life," the church's website reads. "Therefore, it is essential to strengthen relationships with all family members, both those who are alive and those who have died."

The Mormon Church currently has about 3.4bn microfilm images of birth, death and marriage certificates, census and property data and tax records, accessible by anyone at www.familysearch.org.

Family Search is planning to build data centers for the same purpose in Europe and Asia.

The church had more than 14m members as of December 2010, according to its website.