Uzbeks will now be able to trace seven generations of their ancestry

A proposal has been put forward to launch the Shajara information system in Uzbekistan. The initiative was presented on 21 November as President Shavkat Mirziyoyev reviewed proposals aimed at reforming the fields of intellectual property, archival work and legal education.

According to the information provided, the new service will enable users to create their family tree, access birth, marriage and death records, and search for distant relatives based on genetic data.

During discussions on modernizing archival work, it was noted that archives across the country currently hold 16 million document collections, including 1.3 million particularly valuable and unique records. Documents from the Bukhara Emirate’s Kushbegi Chancellery and the Khiva Khanate’s Divan Office have been inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

At the same time, the digitization rate of archival documents stands at only 2 percent per year. It was emphasized that by 2030 the level of digitization of the archival fund must reach 60 percent, with full digitization of particularly valuable and unique documents.

To achieve this, the plan includes integrating sectoral information systems into a Unified National Archival Information System, implementing radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology for document tracking and online monitoring, and introducing artificial intelligence technologies to support document classification and review. The responsibilities of district and city archives will be transferred to regional archival administrations.

President Mirziyoyev stressed the importance of systematically implementing the proposed updates to increase efficiency and improve convenience for both the public and entrepreneurs in the discussed sectors.